From hshonerd@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 04:28:05 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 05:28:05 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Greg, David, and All, Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? Henry > On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all > about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little > speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and > esp. the Parkland students): > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > Just noticing. > -greg > > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > >> Francine: >> >> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >> idiot". >> >> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >> >> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >> >> David Kellogg >> Sangmyung University >> >> Recent Article in *Early Years* >> >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >> child?s first interrogatives >> >> >> Free e-print available at: >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >> wrote: >> >>> message from Francine: >>> >>> >>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>> >>> >>> >>> Here's the link (again): >>> >>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>> >>> Just for starters, >>> >>> >>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >> order. >>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>> "interference." >>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >> to >>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>> might have found their calling. >>> >>> >>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >> the >>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >> the >>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>> >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of mike cole >>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>> >>> Hi Francine- >>> >>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>> interviews? >>> >>> mike >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>> >>>> >>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>> activist./scholars >>>> >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >> In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>> >>>> >>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>> AERA >>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >> or >>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >> responsibility >>> to >>>> lead and teach. >>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>> ybdkh6kw >>>>> >>>> tinyurl.com >>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >> leap?then >>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>> mind >>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >> tangible, >>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >> which >>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>> of >>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>> does >>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>> located >>>> thei >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>> presentations >>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>> >>>> >>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>> >>>> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>> >>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>> >>>> Graduate School of Education >>>> >>>> Rutgers University >>>> >>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>> >>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org> http://www. >>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>> >>>> www.performingtheworld.org> http://www< >>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>> p://www>. >>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From andyb@marxists.org Sun Apr 1 04:56:28 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 21:56:28 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, or I'm on foot in Melbourne ... ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > Greg, David, and All, > Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent > dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. > > This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? > > I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > > Henry > > >> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> >> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >> esp. the Parkland students): >> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >> Just noticing. >> -greg >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >> >>> Francine: >>> >>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>> idiot". >>> >>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>> >>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> Sangmyung University >>> >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>> >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>> child?s first interrogatives >>> >>> >>> Free e-print available at: >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>> wrote: >>> >>>> message from Francine: >>>> >>>> >>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Here's the link (again): >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Just for starters, >>>> >>>> >>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>> order. >>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>> "interference." >>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>> to >>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>> might have found their calling. >>>> >>>> >>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>> the >>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>> the >>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hi Francine- >>>> >>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>> interviews? >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>> activist./scholars >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>> In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>> AERA >>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>> or >>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>> responsibility >>>> to >>>>> lead and teach. >>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>> leap?then >>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>> mind >>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>> tangible, >>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>> which >>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>> of >>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>> does >>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>> located >>>>> thei >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>> presentations >>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>> >>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>> >>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>> >>>>> Rutgers University >>>>> >>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>> >>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>> http://www. >>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>> >>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>> http://www< >>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>> p://www>. >>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >> >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From lsmolucha@hotmail.com Sun Apr 1 06:08:06 2018 From: lsmolucha@hotmail.com (Larry Smolucha) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 13:08:06 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Message from Francine: Let's speak in metaphors - as in Henry's recurring dream - in order to see the magnificent panorama the bus must reach the very edge of the cliff but going off the cliff means disaster (which is averted by changing drivers at the last minute). Wouldn't it be ironic if the March for Lives movement resorts to violence (Weatherman style)? This is exactly what ruined the Black Lives Matters movement - the call for killing policemen (Blue Lives don't Matter). If the desired outcome is just to bring down the establishment, motives don't matter, ethics are irrelevant, the anarchist is just as useful (maybe more useful) than the idealist. Who ends up in the driver's seat is what matters - the anarchist will drive the bus off the cliff. There is a Tarot card- the Fool - who is distracted by some beautiful vision and about to step off the edge of a cliff. This is the beginning of the Major Arcana cycle of Tarot cards. It is about the Leap of Faith. In the third Indiana Jones movie, he has to walk out over the edge of the cliff and finds he is walking on invisible stones. The morale of the story: What matters is "Whose useful idiot are you?" ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 6:28 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research Greg, David, and All, Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? Henry > On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all > about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little > speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and > esp. the Parkland students): > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? 13wham.com (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s > Just noticing. > -greg > > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > >> Francine: >> >> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >> idiot". >> >> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >> >> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >> >> David Kellogg >> Sangmyung University >> >> Recent Article in *Early Years* >> >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >> child?s first interrogatives >> >> >> Free e-print available at: >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >> wrote: >> >>> message from Francine: >>> >>> >>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>> >>> >>> >>> Here's the link (again): >>> >>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>> >>> Just for starters, >>> >>> >>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >> order. >>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>> "interference." >>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >> to >>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>> might have found their calling. >>> >>> >>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >> the >>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >> the >>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>> >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of mike cole >>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>> >>> Hi Francine- >>> >>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>> interviews? >>> >>> mike >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>> >>>> >>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>> activist./scholars >>>> >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >> In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>> >>>> >>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>> AERA >>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >> or >>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >> responsibility >>> to >>>> lead and teach. >>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>> ybdkh6kw >>>>> >>>> tinyurl.com >>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >> leap?then >>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>> mind >>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >> tangible, >>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >> which >>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>> of >>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>> does >>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>> located >>>> thei >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>> presentations >>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>> >>>> >>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>> >>>> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>> >>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>> >>>> Graduate School of Education >>>> >>>> Rutgers University >>>> >>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>> >>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org >> http://www. >>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>> >>>> www.performingtheworld.org >> http://www< >>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>> p://www>. >>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From Peg.Griffin@att.net Sun Apr 1 07:41:04 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 10:41:04 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001801d3c9c7$772cb590$658620b0$@att.net> Henry, Reminiscent? Prescient? Embedded in the zeitgeist? "I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a few days, is the 50th anniversary of his assassination on April 4, 2018 during his work on the the sanitation workers' strike. PG -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2018 7:28 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research Greg, David, and All, Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? Henry > On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was > all about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's > little speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our > Lives kids (and esp. the Parkland students): > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mush > y-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > Just noticing. > -greg > > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > >> Francine: >> >> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov >> was a "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself >> was a "useful idiot". >> >> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book >> length by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho >> Kim and myself in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >> >> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of >> outcomes and not just motives. If the study of morality over history >> tells us anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >> >> David Kellogg >> Sangmyung University >> >> Recent Article in *Early Years* >> >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and >> the child?s first interrogatives >> >> >> Free e-print available at: >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >> >> wrote: >> >>> message from Francine: >>> >>> >>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the >>> 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>> >>> >>> >>> Here's the link (again): >>> >>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>> >>> Just for starters, >>> >>> >>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a >>> nation involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of >>> rational discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the >>> new social >> order. >>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>> "interference." >>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of >>> unwitting traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The >>> recently traumatized high school student March for Life activists >>> are vulnerable >> to >>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle >>> out out or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few >>> student activists might have found their calling. >>> >>> >>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what >>> could have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this >>> is an interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this >>> social phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack >>> Getzels at the University of Chicago talking about a study of >>> student activists in >> the >>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored >>> at >> the >>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as >>> many were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>> >>> >>> ________________________________ >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> on behalf of mike cole >>> >>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>> >>> Hi Francine- >>> >>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>> interviews? >>> >>> mike >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>> >>>> >>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>> activist./scholars >>>> >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>> >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>> Communism >>> youtu.be >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>> >>> >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>> of Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >> In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >> >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>> >>>> >>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session >>>> at >>> AERA >>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last >>>> years conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and >>>> more people, particularly graduate students, were identifying as >>>> activist scholars >> or >>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >> responsibility >>> to >>>> lead and teach. >>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>> ybdkh6kw >>>>> >>>> tinyurl.com >>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It >>>> believes that historical development continues as long as it >>>> follows a straight line. When a change comes, a break in the >>>> historical fabric, a >> leap?then >>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the >>>> na?ve mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The >>>> scientific >>> mind >>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, >>>> forging ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as >>>> the >> tangible, >>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >> which >>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true >>>> for revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was >>>> born >>> of >>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of >>>> the Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is >>>> that it >>> does >>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>> located >>>> thei >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna >>>> Stetsenko agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a >>>> long history of rigorous scholarship and activism but from with >>>> different frameworks, activities and communities. These three >>>> presentations will jumpstart a conversation with an invited panel >>>> of emerging and established scholar activists who will collectively >>>> interview and respond to the >>> presentations >>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>> >>>> >>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>> >>>> >>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie >>>> >>>> >>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>> >>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>> >>>> Graduate School of Education >>>> >>>> Rutgers University >>>> >>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>> >>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org> http://www. >>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>> >>>> www.performingtheworld.org> http://www< >>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>> htt >>> p://www>. >>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 08:14:45 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 09:14:45 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Henry, I find your description of your dream to be delightful. Seems like important gap-filling work going on here. I like the terms poeisis and resonance. And on that note, check out this Ted Talk (and the name of the link gives a hint to what it is about...): https://www.ted.com/talks/rives_on_4_a_m (and I should add, the last time I shared this with a colleague, I sent it around midnight and he just happened to get it at 3:56 am when he woke up and couldn't sleep - eerie indeed!). -greg On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 5:28 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > Greg, David, and All, > Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at > 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to > sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of > transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not > knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on > Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in > Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad > scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the > direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where > we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. > Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a > beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of > the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, > and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various > places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain > I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way > west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my > dream I did not. > > This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes > motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about > the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either > individually or collectively, with the destination? > > I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I > will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up > the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed > somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this > case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. > What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment > I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march > in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young > people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in > the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > > Henry > > > > On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > > I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was > all > > about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little > > speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids > (and > > esp. the Parkland students): > > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland- > survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > > Just noticing. > > -greg > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg > wrote: > > > >> Francine: > >> > >> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was > a > >> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a > "useful > >> idiot". > >> > >> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book > length > >> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and > myself > >> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. > >> > >> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to > >> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of > outcomes > >> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us > >> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure > >> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. > >> > >> David Kellogg > >> Sangmyung University > >> > >> Recent Article in *Early Years* > >> > >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > >> child?s first interrogatives > >> > >> > >> Free e-print available at: > >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > >> > >> > >> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha > >> wrote: > >> > >>> message from Francine: > >>> > >>> > >>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the > 1984 > >>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Here's the link (again): > >>> > >>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>> > >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>> > >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>> Communism > >>> youtu.be > >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. > In > >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Just for starters, > >>> > >>> > >>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation > >>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational > >>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social > >> order. > >>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian > >>> "interference." > >>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having > >>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting > >>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently > >>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable > >> to > >>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out > out > >>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student > activists > >>> might have found their calling. > >>> > >>> > >>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could > >>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an > >>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social > >>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels > at > >>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in > >> the > >>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at > >> the > >>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as > many > >>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or > >>> activist/teachers all of one type? > >>> > >>> > >>> ________________________________ > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > >>> on behalf of mike cole > >>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > >>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>> > >>> Hi Francine- > >>> > >>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's > >>> interviews? > >>> > >>> mike > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha < > lsmolucha@hotmail.com> > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to > >>> activist./scholars > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>> > >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>> Communism > >>> youtu.be > >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. > In > >>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>> > >>> > >>>> > >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>>> > >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>>> Communism > >>>> youtu.be > >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. > >> In > >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> ________________________________ > >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu edu > >>> > >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman > >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM > >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>>> > >>>> Hello XMCAers, > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at > >>> AERA > >>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an > >>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years > >>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more > people, > >>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars > >> or > >>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and > >>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a > >> responsibility > >>> to > >>>> lead and teach. > >>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do? >>> ybdkh6kw > >>>>> > >>>> tinyurl.com > >>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It > believes > >>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight > >>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a > >> leap?then > >>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the > na?ve > >>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific > >>> mind > >>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, > forging > >>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the > >> tangible, > >>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks > >> which > >>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for > >>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. > >>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was > born > >>> of > >>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the > >>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it > >>> does > >>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers > >>> located > >>>> thei > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko > >>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history > of > >>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, > >>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a > >>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar > >>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the > >>> presentations > >>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Carrie > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > >>>> > >>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > >>>> > >>>> Graduate School of Education > >>>> > >>>> Rutgers University > >>>> > >>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu > >>>> > >>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org >> http://www. > >>> eastsideinstitute.org > >>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> > >>>> > >>>> www.performingtheworld.org >> http://www< > >>> http://www.performingtheworld.org >>> p://www>. > >>>> performingtheworld.org> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From helenaworthen@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 08:16:52 2018 From: helenaworthen@gmail.com (Helena Worthen) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 21:01:52 +0545 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> None of these movements are brief and none of them are over. Occupy isn?t over; the smaller, more specific targeted efforts are still going. Black Lives Matter isn?t over by a long shot. The young Marchers may grow up, but so did we, but they won?t go away. The Weathermen and other SDS folks are writing their books about what they learned, what they did wrong, etc ? good reflections on the past. We?re in Kathmandu right now, where after 10 years of fighting, there is a Constitution and a delicate peace and the possibility of some actual economic development that may occur alongside movements towards equality across caste, language and ethnicity and gender. Everyone we talk to is exhausted from the years of war (and 10 years is not long; compare Viet Nam) but at the same time, although not exactly hopeful, at least expecting peace in the immediate future, and the opportunity to build something. Helena Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 Blog US/ Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com skype: helena.worthen1 > On Apr 1, 2018, at 5:41 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, > or I'm on foot in Melbourne ... > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >> Greg, David, and All, >> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent >> dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. >> >> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? >> >> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >> >> Henry >> >> >>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>> >>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >>> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >>> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >>> esp. the Parkland students): >>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >>> Just noticing. >>> -greg >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>>> Francine: >>>> >>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>>> idiot". >>>> >>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>>> >>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>> >>>> David Kellogg >>>> Sangmyung University >>>> >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>> >>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>>> child?s first interrogatives >>>> >>>> >>>> Free e-print available at: >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> message from Francine: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Just for starters, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>>> order. >>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>> "interference." >>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>>> to >>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>>> might have found their calling. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>>> the >>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>>> the >>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>> >>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>> interviews? >>>>> >>>>> mike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>>> Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>> In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>>> AERA >>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>>> or >>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>> responsibility >>>>> to >>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>>> leap?then >>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>>> mind >>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>>> tangible, >>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>>> which >>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>>> of >>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>>> does >>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>>> located >>>>>> thei >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>>> presentations >>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>> >>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>> >>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>> >>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>> >>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>> >>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>>> http://www. >>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>>> http://www< >>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>> p://www>. >>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 08:55:28 2018 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2018 15:55:28 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> References: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> Message-ID: Class struggle for socialist power. The only exit for the survival of our species. In each and every country. Especially in US. Otherwise, we are lost, humanity is lost forever. It was a huge mistake to support Obama, to support Clinton instead of building an independent, conmunist working-class movement. 1 Nis 2018 Pzr 18:43 tarihinde Helena Worthen ?unu yazd?: > None of these movements are brief and none of them are over. Occupy isn?t > over; the smaller, more specific targeted efforts are still going. Black > Lives Matter isn?t over by a long shot. The young Marchers may grow up, but > so did we, but they won?t go away. The Weathermen and other SDS folks are > writing their books about what they learned, what they did wrong, etc ? > good reflections on the past. > > We?re in Kathmandu right now, where after 10 years of fighting, there is a > Constitution and a delicate peace and the possibility of some actual > economic development that may occur alongside movements towards equality > across caste, language and ethnicity and gender. Everyone we talk to is > exhausted from the years of war (and 10 years is not long; compare Viet > Nam) but at the same time, although not exactly hopeful, at least expecting > peace in the immediate future, and the opportunity to build something. > > Helena > > > Helena Worthen > helenaworthen@gmail.com > Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 > Blog US/ Viet Nam: > helenaworthen.wordpress.com > skype: helena.worthen1 > > > > > > > > > On Apr 1, 2018, at 5:41 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > > I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, > > or I'm on foot in Melbourne ... > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > >> Greg, David, and All, > >> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke > at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to > sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of > transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not > knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on > Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in > Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad > scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the > direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where > we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. > Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a > beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of > the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, > and I wake up. This is a recurrent > >> dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me > (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and > son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to > Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. > >> > >> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes > motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about > the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either > individually or collectively, with the destination? > >> > >> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I > do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not > making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: > headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in > this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. > What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment > I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march > in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young > people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in > the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > >> > >> Henry > >> > >> > >>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson > wrote: > >>> > >>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was > all > >>> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little > >>> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids > (and > >>> esp. the Parkland students): > >>> > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > >>> Just noticing. > >>> -greg > >>> > >>> > >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg > wrote: > >>> > >>>> Francine: > >>>> > >>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov > was a > >>>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a > "useful > >>>> idiot". > >>>> > >>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book > length > >>>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and > myself > >>>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. > >>>> > >>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to > >>>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of > outcomes > >>>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us > >>>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure > >>>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. > >>>> > >>>> David Kellogg > >>>> Sangmyung University > >>>> > >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* > >>>> > >>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and > the > >>>> child?s first interrogatives > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Free e-print available at: > >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha < > lsmolucha@hotmail.com> > >>>> wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> message from Francine: > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the > 1984 > >>>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> Here's the link (again): > >>>>> > >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>>>> > >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>>>> > >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>>>> Communism > >>>>> youtu.be > >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to > crisis. In > >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> Just for starters, > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation > >>>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational > >>>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social > >>>> order. > >>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian > >>>>> "interference." > >>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having > >>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of > unwitting > >>>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently > >>>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are > vulnerable > >>>> to > >>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle > out out > >>>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student > activists > >>>>> might have found their calling. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what > could > >>>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an > >>>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social > >>>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack > Getzels at > >>>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists > in > >>>> the > >>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored > at > >>>> the > >>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as > many > >>>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or > >>>>> activist/teachers all of one type? > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> ________________________________ > >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> > >>>>> on behalf of mike cole > >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM > >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist > Scholar: > >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>>>> > >>>>> Hi Francine- > >>>>> > >>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's > >>>>> interviews? > >>>>> > >>>>> mike > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha < > lsmolucha@hotmail.com> > >>>>> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to > >>>>> activist./scholars > >>>>>> > >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>>>> > >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>>>> Communism > >>>>> youtu.be > >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to > crisis. In > >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>>>>> Communism > >>>>>> youtu.be > >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to > crisis. > >>>> In > >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> ________________________________ > >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman > >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM > >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Hello XMCAers, > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session > at > >>>>> AERA > >>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an > >>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last > years > >>>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more > people, > >>>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist > scholars > >>>> or > >>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and > >>>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a > >>>> responsibility > >>>>> to > >>>>>> lead and teach. > >>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do? >>>>> ybdkh6kw > >>>>>> tinyurl.com > >>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It > believes > >>>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a > straight > >>>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a > >>>> leap?then > >>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the > na?ve > >>>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The > scientific > >>>>> mind > >>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, > forging > >>>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the > >>>> tangible, > >>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks > >>>> which > >>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for > >>>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. > >>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was > born > >>>>> of > >>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of > the > >>>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that > it > >>>>> does > >>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers > >>>>> located > >>>>>> thei > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna > Stetsenko > >>>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long > history of > >>>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different > frameworks, > >>>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will > jumpstart a > >>>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established > scholar > >>>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the > >>>>> presentations > >>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Carrie > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Graduate School of Education > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Rutgers University > >>>>>> > >>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu > >>>>>> > >>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org >>>> http://www. > >>>>> eastsideinstitute.org > >>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org >>>> http://www< > >>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org >>>>> p://www>. > >>>>>> performingtheworld.org> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -- > >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > >>> Assistant Professor > >>> Department of Anthropology > >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > >>> Brigham Young University > >>> Provo, UT 84602 > >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > >> > > > > > From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 09:05:27 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 10:05:27 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <001801d3c9c7$772cb590$658620b0$@att.net> References: <001801d3c9c7$772cb590$658620b0$@att.net> Message-ID: Peg and Helena, Yes, the criticisms of BLM are exactly the kind of thing that King was criticized for (and which the history books seem to have forgotten - just the other day I was reading a 4th grade text about MLK and it kept repeating the words "peaceful" and "nonviolent" - as if the Civil Rights movement were just a matter of protestors saying "Pretty please can we be treated as equal human beings" and whites/establishment saying "Well, since you asked so nicely, of course we will grant you those rights [well, kinda]." The message is clear in these renditions: "Keep it down kids" and "Don't upset anybody". Good to see that some kids aren't paying attention...). Here is a letter to King from 12 liberal clergymen in 1963 who felt that he was pushing too much and inciting too much violence: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-martin-luther-king/ Right now, I think we can all agree that these movements aren't to the point of being as successful or as much of a "movement" as the Civil Rights Movement, but perhaps... And Peg, thanks for that reminder. "From every mountainside, let freedom ring!" Best, greg On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Peg Griffin wrote: > Henry, > Reminiscent? Prescient? Embedded in the zeitgeist? > "I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there > with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to > the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. > I'm not fearing any man." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. > In a few days, is the 50th anniversary of his assassination on April 4, > 2018 during his work on the the sanitation workers' strike. > PG > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2018 7:28 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > > Greg, David, and All, > Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at > 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to > sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of > transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not > knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on > Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in > Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad > scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the > direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where > we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. > Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a > beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of > the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, > and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various > places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain > I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way > west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my > dream I did not. > > This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes > motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about > the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either > individually or collectively, with the destination? > > I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I > will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up > the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed > somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this > case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. > What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment > I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march > in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young > people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in > the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > > Henry > > > > On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > > I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was > > all about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's > > little speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our > > Lives kids (and esp. the Parkland students): > > http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mush > > y-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > > Just noticing. > > -greg > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg > wrote: > > > >> Francine: > >> > >> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov > >> was a "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself > >> was a "useful idiot". > >> > >> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book > >> length by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho > >> Kim and myself in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education > in 2015. > >> > >> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to > >> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of > >> outcomes and not just motives. If the study of morality over history > >> tells us anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure > >> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. > >> > >> David Kellogg > >> Sangmyung University > >> > >> Recent Article in *Early Years* > >> > >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and > >> the child?s first interrogatives > >> > >> > >> Free e-print available at: > >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > >> > >> > >> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha > >> > >> wrote: > >> > >>> message from Francine: > >>> > >>> > >>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the > >>> 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Here's the link (again): > >>> > >>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>> > >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>> > >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>> Communism > >>> youtu.be > >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to > >>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the > method. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Just for starters, > >>> > >>> > >>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a > >>> nation involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of > >>> rational discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the > >>> new social > >> order. > >>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian > >>> "interference." > >>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having > >>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of > >>> unwitting traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The > >>> recently traumatized high school student March for Life activists > >>> are vulnerable > >> to > >>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle > >>> out out or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few > >>> student activists might have found their calling. > >>> > >>> > >>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what > >>> could have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this > >>> is an interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this > >>> social phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack > >>> Getzels at the University of Chicago talking about a study of > >>> student activists in > >> the > >>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored > >>> at > >> the > >>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as > >>> many were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or > >>> activist/teachers all of one type? > >>> > >>> > >>> ________________________________ > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>> on behalf of mike cole > >>> > >>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > >>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>> > >>> Hi Francine- > >>> > >>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's > >>> interviews? > >>> > >>> mike > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha > >>> > >>> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to > >>> activist./scholars > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ > >>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>> > >>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of > >>> Communism > >>> youtu.be > >>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to > >>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the > method. > >>> > >>> > >>>> > >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg] >>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> > >>>> > >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face > >>>> of Communism > >>>> youtu.be > >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. > >> In > >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> ________________________________ > >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>> >>> > >>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman > >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM > >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: > >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > >>>> > >>>> Hello XMCAers, > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session > >>>> at > >>> AERA > >>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an > >>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last > >>>> years conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and > >>>> more people, particularly graduate students, were identifying as > >>>> activist scholars > >> or > >>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and > >>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a > >> responsibility > >>> to > >>>> lead and teach. > >>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do? >>> ybdkh6kw > >>>>> > >>>> tinyurl.com > >>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It > >>>> believes that historical development continues as long as it > >>>> follows a straight line. When a change comes, a break in the > >>>> historical fabric, a > >> leap?then > >>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the > >>>> na?ve mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The > >>>> scientific > >>> mind > >>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, > >>>> forging ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as > >>>> the > >> tangible, > >>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks > >> which > >>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true > >>>> for revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. > >>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was > >>>> born > >>> of > >>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of > >>>> the Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is > >>>> that it > >>> does > >>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers > >>> located > >>>> thei > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna > >>>> Stetsenko agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a > >>>> long history of rigorous scholarship and activism but from with > >>>> different frameworks, activities and communities. These three > >>>> presentations will jumpstart a conversation with an invited panel > >>>> of emerging and established scholar activists who will collectively > >>>> interview and respond to the > >>> presentations > >>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Carrie > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > >>>> > >>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > >>>> > >>>> Graduate School of Education > >>>> > >>>> Rutgers University > >>>> > >>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu > >>>> > >>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org >> http://www. > >>> eastsideinstitute.org > >>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> > >>>> > >>>> www.performingtheworld.org >> http://www< > >>> http://www.performingtheworld.org >>> htt > >>> p://www>. > >>>> performingtheworld.org> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >> > > > > > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From hshonerd@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 09:16:20 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 10:16:20 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> References: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> Message-ID: <82E90322-7EFD-49B1-BA44-381F376A627F@gmail.com> Andy, Francine, Peg, Greg, Helena y toda la gente, Maybe I should send more posts in the wee small hours of the morning. More women than men responded! It?s Passover time amongst the people of the book and I?m married to one of them. Pesach is the celebration of the birth of the conscienciousness of Judaism, arguably the first monotheism. Hence, Judaism is the foundation of Spinoza?s thinking, so arguably the seeds of a non-dualistic philosophy. So, arguably, Passover is the celebration of coming through one more mitzraim, narrow place, for homo-sapiens. A hell of a time once again, but one full of promise. Us old ones will probably not be there to see the promised land, but like Gautama and MLK Jr. maybe we can let go of our fears. This little missive comes in the light of a new day in Albuquerque. Have a good Easter Sunday, ya?ll. Henry > On Apr 1, 2018, at 9:16 AM, Helena Worthen wrote: > > None of these movements are brief and none of them are over. Occupy isn?t over; the smaller, more specific targeted efforts are still going. Black Lives Matter isn?t over by a long shot. The young Marchers may grow up, but so did we, but they won?t go away. The Weathermen and other SDS folks are writing their books about what they learned, what they did wrong, etc ? good reflections on the past. > > We?re in Kathmandu right now, where after 10 years of fighting, there is a Constitution and a delicate peace and the possibility of some actual economic development that may occur alongside movements towards equality across caste, language and ethnicity and gender. Everyone we talk to is exhausted from the years of war (and 10 years is not long; compare Viet Nam) but at the same time, although not exactly hopeful, at least expecting peace in the immediate future, and the opportunity to build something. > > Helena > > > Helena Worthen > helenaworthen@gmail.com > Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 > Blog US/ Viet Nam: > helenaworthen.wordpress.com > skype: helena.worthen1 > > > > > > > >> On Apr 1, 2018, at 5:41 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, >> or I'm on foot in Melbourne ... >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >>> Greg, David, and All, >>> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent >>> dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. >>> >>> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? >>> >>> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >>> >>> Henry >>> >>> >>>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>>> >>>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >>>> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >>>> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >>>> esp. the Parkland students): >>>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >>>> Just noticing. >>>> -greg >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>> >>>>> Francine: >>>>> >>>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>>>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>>>> idiot". >>>>> >>>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>>>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>>>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>>>> >>>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>>>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>>>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>>>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>>>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>>> >>>>> David Kellogg >>>>> Sangmyung University >>>>> >>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>>> >>>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>>>> child?s first interrogatives >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Free e-print available at: >>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> message from Francine: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>>> Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Just for starters, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>>>> order. >>>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>>> "interference." >>>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>>>> to >>>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>>>> might have found their calling. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>>>> the >>>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>>>> the >>>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>>> >>>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>>> interviews? >>>>>> >>>>>> mike >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>>> >>>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>>> Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>>>> Communism >>>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>>> In >>>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>>>> AERA >>>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>>>> or >>>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>>> responsibility >>>>>> to >>>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>>>> leap?then >>>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>>>> mind >>>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>>>> tangible, >>>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>>>> which >>>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>>>> of >>>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>>>> does >>>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>>>> located >>>>>>> thei >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>>>> presentations >>>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Carrie >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>>>> http://www. >>>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>>>> http://www< >>>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>>> p://www>. >>>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>> Assistant Professor >>>> Department of Anthropology >>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>> Brigham Young University >>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >> > > From Peg.Griffin@att.net Sun Apr 1 09:22:42 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 12:22:42 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> References: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000301d3c9d5$a9c8c300$fd5a4900$@att.net> That's what I see, too, Helena, here. The Black Lives Movement has mutually recognized internal variations (including Black Lives Matter). In variability, as a psychology trained friend used to say, there is hope. I see the youth recognizing each other from other sections, consciously building on ties to past activism (troublemakers, as John Lewis says) as well as reciprocal nurturing from contemporary events (even ones that pop up inthe Senate and House) as they nevertheless persist and re-claim their time! Besides the boost to elders that newer aspects of movements bring with them, there are also new and likely effective tactics and recruitment that spur more dedication, creativity, motivation and, dare I say, movement? A young woman cashier at my local grocery store, uses the term "badges" to refer to what I call my pins (from different resistance issues and organizations ). I'm taking on that terminology! As a part of getting dressed, I choose and arrange the badges; they silently answer the old union question, "What side are you on, my sister/brother?" and I often learn a lot from the answers other people give. PG -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Helena Worthen Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2018 11:17 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research None of these movements are brief and none of them are over. Occupy isn?t over; the smaller, more specific targeted efforts are still going. Black Lives Matter isn?t over by a long shot. The young Marchers may grow up, but so did we, but they won?t go away. The Weathermen and other SDS folks are writing their books about what they learned, what they did wrong, etc ? good reflections on the past. We?re in Kathmandu right now, where after 10 years of fighting, there is a Constitution and a delicate peace and the possibility of some actual economic development that may occur alongside movements towards equality across caste, language and ethnicity and gender. Everyone we talk to is exhausted from the years of war (and 10 years is not long; compare Viet Nam) but at the same time, although not exactly hopeful, at least expecting peace in the immediate future, and the opportunity to build something. Helena Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 Blog US/ Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com skype: helena.worthen1 > On Apr 1, 2018, at 5:41 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, or I'm on > foot in Melbourne ... > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >> Greg, David, and All, >> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I >> awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. >> >> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? >> >> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >> >> Henry >> >> >>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>> >>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov >>> was all about, but I do notice some eerie connections between >>> Bezmenov's little speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the >>> March for our Lives kids (and esp. the Parkland students): >>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mu >>> shy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >>> Just noticing. >>> -greg >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>>> Francine: >>>> >>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov >>>> was a "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself >>>> was a "useful idiot". >>>> >>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at >>>> book length by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by >>>> Yongho Kim and myself in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>>> >>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed >>>> to amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of >>>> outcomes and not just motives. If the study of morality over >>>> history tells us anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come >>>> from pure motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>> >>>> David Kellogg >>>> Sangmyung University >>>> >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>> >>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, >>>> and the child?s first interrogatives >>>> >>> > >>>> >>>> Free e-print available at: >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> message from Francine: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding >>>>> the 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>> of Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Just for starters, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a >>>>> nation involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of >>>>> rational discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under >>>>> the new social >>>> order. >>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>> "interference." >>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of >>>>> unwitting traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The >>>>> recently traumatized high school student March for Life activists >>>>> are vulnerable >>>> to >>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle >>>>> out out or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few >>>>> student activists might have found their calling. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what >>>>> could have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, >>>>> this is an interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from >>>>> this social phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) >>>>> Dr. Jack Getzels at the University of Chicago talking about a >>>>> study of student activists in >>>> the >>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders >>>>> scored at >>>> the >>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just >>>>> as many were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ >>>>> scholars or activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>> >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>> >>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>> interviews? >>>>> >>>>> mike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>> of Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>>> of Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>> In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important >>>>>> session at >>>>> AERA >>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last >>>>>> years conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and >>>>>> more people, particularly graduate students, were identifying as >>>>>> activist scholars >>>> or >>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural >>>>>> and activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>> responsibility >>>>> to >>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to >>>>>> Do?>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It >>>>>> believes that historical development continues as long as it >>>>>> follows a straight line. When a change comes, a break in the >>>>>> historical fabric, a >>>> leap?then >>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the >>>>>> na?ve mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The >>>>>> scientific >>>>> mind >>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, >>>>>> forging ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch >>>>>> as the >>>> tangible, >>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those >>>>>> tasks >>>> which >>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true >>>>>> for revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory >>>>>> was born >>>>> of >>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments >>>>>> of the Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations >>>>>> is that it >>>>> does >>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his >>>>>> followers >>>>> located >>>>>> thei >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna >>>>>> Stetsenko agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a >>>>>> long history of rigorous scholarship and activism but from with >>>>>> different frameworks, activities and communities. These three >>>>>> presentations will jumpstart a conversation with an invited panel >>>>>> of emerging and established scholar activists who will >>>>>> collectively interview and respond to the >>>>> presentations >>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>> >>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>> >>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>> >>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>> >>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>> >>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>>> http://www. >>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>> > >>>>>> >>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>>> http://www< >>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>> g>>>> p://www>. >>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > From hshonerd@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 11:15:07 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 12:15:07 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: <001801d3c9c7$772cb590$658620b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <228FEC56-DC57-4407-8275-5F76E872BA69@gmail.com> Greg, Excellent! It?s easy to forget things. And after all Martin paid with his life. Such courage. He wasn?t suicidal, but preached and practiced letting go of fear. What a guy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk Henry > On Apr 1, 2018, at 10:05 AM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > Peg and Helena, > > Yes, the criticisms of BLM are exactly the kind of thing that King was > criticized for (and which the history books seem to have forgotten - just > the other day I was reading a 4th grade text about MLK and it kept > repeating the words "peaceful" and "nonviolent" - as if the Civil Rights > movement were just a matter of protestors saying "Pretty please can we be > treated as equal human beings" and whites/establishment saying "Well, since > you asked so nicely, of course we will grant you those rights [well, > kinda]." The message is clear in these renditions: "Keep it down kids" and > "Don't upset anybody". Good to see that some kids aren't paying > attention...). > > Here is a letter to King from 12 liberal clergymen in 1963 who felt that he > was pushing too much and inciting too much violence: > http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-martin-luther-king/ > > Right now, I think we can all agree that these movements aren't to the > point of being as successful or as much of a "movement" as the Civil Rights > Movement, but perhaps... > > And Peg, thanks for that reminder. > "From every mountainside, let freedom ring!" > > Best, > greg > > > On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Peg Griffin wrote: > >> Henry, >> Reminiscent? Prescient? Embedded in the zeitgeist? >> "I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there >> with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to >> the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. >> I'm not fearing any man." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. >> In a few days, is the 50th anniversary of his assassination on April 4, >> 2018 during his work on the the sanitation workers' strike. >> PG >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD >> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2018 7:28 AM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >> >> Greg, David, and All, >> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at >> 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to >> sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of >> transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not >> knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on >> Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in >> Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad >> scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the >> direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where >> we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. >> Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a >> beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of >> the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, >> and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various >> places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain >> I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way >> west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my >> dream I did not. >> >> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes >> motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about >> the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either >> individually or collectively, with the destination? >> >> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I >> will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up >> the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed >> somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this >> case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. >> What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment >> I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march >> in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young >> people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in >> the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >> >> Henry >> >> >>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson >> wrote: >>> >>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was >>> all about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's >>> little speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our >>> Lives kids (and esp. the Parkland students): >>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mush >>> y-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >>> Just noticing. >>> -greg >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg >> wrote: >>> >>>> Francine: >>>> >>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov >>>> was a "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself >>>> was a "useful idiot". >>>> >>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book >>>> length by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho >>>> Kim and myself in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education >> in 2015. >>>> >>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of >>>> outcomes and not just motives. If the study of morality over history >>>> tells us anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>> >>>> David Kellogg >>>> Sangmyung University >>>> >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>> >>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and >>>> the child?s first interrogatives >>>> >>>> >>>> Free e-print available at: >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> message from Francine: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the >>>>> 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the >> method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Just for starters, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a >>>>> nation involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of >>>>> rational discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the >>>>> new social >>>> order. >>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>> "interference." >>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of >>>>> unwitting traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The >>>>> recently traumatized high school student March for Life activists >>>>> are vulnerable >>>> to >>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle >>>>> out out or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few >>>>> student activists might have found their calling. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what >>>>> could have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this >>>>> is an interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this >>>>> social phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack >>>>> Getzels at the University of Chicago talking about a study of >>>>> student activists in >>>> the >>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored >>>>> at >>>> the >>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as >>>>> many were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>> >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>> >>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>> interviews? >>>>> >>>>> mike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the >> method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>>> of Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>> In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> >>>> >>>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session >>>>>> at >>>>> AERA >>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last >>>>>> years conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and >>>>>> more people, particularly graduate students, were identifying as >>>>>> activist scholars >>>> or >>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>> responsibility >>>>> to >>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>>> >>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It >>>>>> believes that historical development continues as long as it >>>>>> follows a straight line. When a change comes, a break in the >>>>>> historical fabric, a >>>> leap?then >>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the >>>>>> na?ve mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The >>>>>> scientific >>>>> mind >>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, >>>>>> forging ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as >>>>>> the >>>> tangible, >>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>>> which >>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true >>>>>> for revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was >>>>>> born >>>>> of >>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of >>>>>> the Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is >>>>>> that it >>>>> does >>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>>> located >>>>>> thei >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna >>>>>> Stetsenko agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a >>>>>> long history of rigorous scholarship and activism but from with >>>>>> different frameworks, activities and communities. These three >>>>>> presentations will jumpstart a conversation with an invited panel >>>>>> of emerging and established scholar activists who will collectively >>>>>> interview and respond to the >>>>> presentations >>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>> >>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>> >>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>> >>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>> >>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>> >>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>>> http://www. >>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>>> http://www< >>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>> htt >>>>> p://www>. >>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From hshonerd@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 12:00:56 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 13:00:56 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5F3C13F7-696A-40AF-82B2-F219D57F92A4@gmail.com> Francine, I was wannabe Weatherman in Cuba cutting sugar cane in the fall of 1969 wiIth the Venceremos Brigade at a small encampment called Aguacate. The brigade was a group of young Americans, I was the next-to oldest at 26. The oldest one was Vic, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War in the Venceremos Brigade (yes, us sugar cane cutters named ourselves in their honor) that started in 1936 and ended three years latter with the utter defeat of democracy, thanks in part to the betrayal by Stalin, who thought Russia had a better chance of survival if communism didn?t attract too much attention internationally. (Remember this was before his short-lived pact with Hitler.) Vic was still at his internationalist ways 30 years latter, when he cut sugar can alongside us young people. Things were very tense in the camp, largely due to the efforts of a group of Weathermen looking for more recruits to their cause back in the U.S. I didn?t make the cut, in fact was suspected of being an infiltrator of some kind from the right. I wasn?t really, though I was naive about the politics that was going on. I confess that naivite has been a a problem my whole life, though thanks to good luck I have survived to wince about very often. I think that most of the Weathermen were really good people, but at least one, named Tom, I believe was no better than Trump is now. I won?t say evil, but a prisoner to evil ideas. A potential in all of us. Tom said, as he attached me (verbally), ?Stalin was right.? I am guessing now that other Weathermen were also prisoners to this kind of thinking. I believe that their thinking may have appealed in a factual way to other white kids, mostly male, but it lacked the grounding of a Black Lives Matter#, MeToo#, and the Civil Rights movement led by Martin. That grounding makes a movement not only well grounded in fact, but also grounded in real-life experience. There?s a Russian word for this, a term used all the time on the chat?I am having a senior moment. In English I would say true, based on fact and authenticity. I would cut Black Lives Matter# and ME Too# a lot of slack as being true, precisely because they seem authentic, not just factual. If you get my drift. I suppose Stalin, back from the grave, would call the Weathermen adventurist. But I don?t think either Stalin, nor the Weathermen, were authentic. They were phonies. Stalin was just a more efficient phony. The Weathermen only ended up killing themselves. It?s probably a good time to stop. I am thinking of the song by Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton ?Say Something?, which is really a song about keeping your mouth shut. Oh well. Remember what I said about naivite. I guess I?m just wincesome guy. Henry > On Apr 1, 2018, at 7:08 AM, Larry Smolucha wrote: > > Message from Francine: > > > Let's speak in metaphors - as in Henry's recurring dream - in order to see the magnificent panorama the bus must reach the very edge of the cliff but going off the cliff means disaster (which is averted by changing drivers at the last minute). Wouldn't it be ironic if the March for Lives movement resorts to violence (Weatherman style)? This is exactly what ruined the Black Lives Matters movement - the call for killing policemen (Blue Lives don't Matter). If the desired outcome is just to bring down the establishment, motives don't matter, ethics are irrelevant, the anarchist is just as useful (maybe more useful) than the idealist. Who ends up in the driver's seat is what matters - the anarchist will drive the bus off the cliff. > > > There is a Tarot card- the Fool - who is distracted by some beautiful vision and about to step off the edge of a cliff. This is the beginning of the Major Arcana cycle of Tarot cards. It is about the Leap of Faith. In the third Indiana Jones movie, he has to walk out over the edge of the cliff and finds he is walking on invisible stones. > > > The morale of the story: What matters is "Whose useful idiot are you?" > > > ________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 6:28 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > > Greg, David, and All, > Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. > > This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? > > I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > > Henry > > >> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> >> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >> esp. the Parkland students): >> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] > > Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? > 13wham.com > (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s > > >> Just noticing. >> -greg >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >> >>> Francine: >>> >>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>> idiot". >>> >>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>> >>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> Sangmyung University >>> >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>> >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>> child?s first interrogatives >>> >>> >>> Free e-print available at: >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>> wrote: >>> >>>> message from Francine: >>>> >>>> >>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Here's the link (again): >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Just for starters, >>>> >>>> >>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>> order. >>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>> "interference." >>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>> to >>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>> might have found their calling. >>>> >>>> >>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>> the >>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>> the >>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hi Francine- >>>> >>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>> interviews? >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>> activist./scholars >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>> In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> >>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>> AERA >>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>> or >>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>> responsibility >>>> to >>>>> lead and teach. >>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>> >>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>> leap?then >>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>> mind >>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>> tangible, >>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>> which >>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>> of >>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>> does >>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>> located >>>>> thei >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>> presentations >>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>> >>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>> >>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>> >>>>> Rutgers University >>>>> >>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>> >>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org >>> http://www. >>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>> >>>>> www.performingtheworld.org >>> http://www< >>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>> p://www>. >>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > From lsmolucha@hotmail.com Sun Apr 1 12:39:39 2018 From: lsmolucha@hotmail.com (Larry Smolucha) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 19:39:39 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <5F3C13F7-696A-40AF-82B2-F219D57F92A4@gmail.com> References: , <5F3C13F7-696A-40AF-82B2-F219D57F92A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: Message from Francine, Henry, What an interesting life you are having! It provides a real life illustration of how these social movements draw in a mix of people, some coming from conflicting value systems. Consider that Joseph Vissanionovich (Stalin) was not Russian but an anti-Russian Georgian rebel who usurped the Communist movement. He did not care about the lives of Russians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Cubans. etc. Did he ever have regard for the Georgian people, I wonder? ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 2:00 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research Francine, I was wannabe Weatherman in Cuba cutting sugar cane in the fall of 1969 wiIth the Venceremos Brigade at a small encampment called Aguacate. The brigade was a group of young Americans, I was the next-to oldest at 26. The oldest one was Vic, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War in the Venceremos Brigade (yes, us sugar cane cutters named ourselves in their honor) that started in 1936 and ended three years latter with the utter defeat of democracy, thanks in part to the betrayal by Stalin, who thought Russia had a better chance of survival if communism didn?t attract too much attention internationally. (Remember this was before his short-lived pact with Hitler.) Vic was still at his internationalist ways 30 years latter, when he cut sugar can alongside us young people. Things were very tense in the camp, largely due to the efforts of a group of Weathermen looking for more recruits to their cause back in the U.S. I didn?t make the cut, in fact was suspected of being an infiltrator of some kind from the right. I wasn?t really, though I was naive about the politics that was going on. I confess that naivite has been a a problem my whole life, though thanks to good luck I have survived to wince about very often. I think that most of the Weathermen were really good people, but at least one, named Tom, I believe was no better than Trump is now. I won?t say evil, but a prisoner to evil ideas. A potential in all of us. Tom said, as he attached me (verbally), ?Stalin was right.? I am guessing now that other Weathermen were also prisoners to this kind of thinking. I believe that their thinking may have appealed in a factual way to other white kids, mostly male, but it lacked the grounding of a Black Lives Matter#, MeToo#, and the Civil Rights movement led by Martin. That grounding makes a movement not only well grounded in fact, but also grounded in real-life experience. There?s a Russian word for this, a term used all the time on the chat?I am having a senior moment. In English I would say true, based on fact and authenticity. I would cut Black Lives Matter# and ME Too# a lot of slack as being true, precisely because they seem authentic, not just factual. If you get my drift. I suppose Stalin, back from the grave, would call the Weathermen adventurist. But I don?t think either Stalin, nor the Weathermen, were authentic. They were phonies. Stalin was just a more efficient phony. The Weathermen only ended up killing themselves. It?s probably a good time to stop. I am thinking of the song by Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton ?Say Something?, which is really a song about keeping your mouth shut. Oh well. Remember what I said about naivite. I guess I?m just wincesome guy. Henry > On Apr 1, 2018, at 7:08 AM, Larry Smolucha wrote: > > Message from Francine: > > > Let's speak in metaphors - as in Henry's recurring dream - in order to see the magnificent panorama the bus must reach the very edge of the cliff but going off the cliff means disaster (which is averted by changing drivers at the last minute). Wouldn't it be ironic if the March for Lives movement resorts to violence (Weatherman style)? This is exactly what ruined the Black Lives Matters movement - the call for killing policemen (Blue Lives don't Matter). If the desired outcome is just to bring down the establishment, motives don't matter, ethics are irrelevant, the anarchist is just as useful (maybe more useful) than the idealist. Who ends up in the driver's seat is what matters - the anarchist will drive the bus off the cliff. > > > There is a Tarot card- the Fool - who is distracted by some beautiful vision and about to step off the edge of a cliff. This is the beginning of the Major Arcana cycle of Tarot cards. It is about the Leap of Faith. In the third Indiana Jones movie, he has to walk out over the edge of the cliff and finds he is walking on invisible stones. > > > The morale of the story: What matters is "Whose useful idiot are you?" > > > ________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 6:28 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > > Greg, David, and All, > Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. > > This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? > > I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? > > Henry > > >> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> >> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >> esp. the Parkland students): >> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? 13wham.com (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s > [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] > > Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? > 13wham.com > (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s > > >> Just noticing. >> -greg >> >> >> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >> >>> Francine: >>> >>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>> idiot". >>> >>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>> >>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> Sangmyung University >>> >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>> >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>> child?s first interrogatives >>> >>> >>> Free e-print available at: >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>> wrote: >>> >>>> message from Francine: >>>> >>>> >>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Here's the link (again): >>>> >>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Just for starters, >>>> >>>> >>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>> order. >>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>> "interference." >>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>> to >>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>> might have found their calling. >>>> >>>> >>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>> the >>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>> the >>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>> >>>> >>>> ________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>> >>>> Hi Francine- >>>> >>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>> interviews? >>>> >>>> mike >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>> activist./scholars >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>> >>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>> Communism >>>> youtu.be >>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>> In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> >>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>> AERA >>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>> or >>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>> responsibility >>>> to >>>>> lead and teach. >>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>> >>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>> leap?then >>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>> mind >>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>> tangible, >>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>> which >>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>> of >>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>> does >>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>> located >>>>> thei >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>> presentations >>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>> >>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>> >>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>> >>>>> Rutgers University >>>>> >>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>> >>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>> http://www. >>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>> >>>>> www.performingtheworld.org> >>> http://www< >>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>> p://www>. >>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > From hshonerd@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 15:26:17 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2018 16:26:17 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: References: <5F3C13F7-696A-40AF-82B2-F219D57F92A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1064036D-0480-4272-87D3-5957C21E7D42@gmail.com> Francine, Perizhvanie! The senior moment is past. Thank you for taking me seriously enough to up the ante, or throw the gauntlet down on behalf of my construal of Stalin, depending on how you like your drash on this horrible little bureaucrat, whose name shall be mentioned no more by me, on this subject line, maybe. And it?s perizhvanie, and belief in perizhvanie, that makes it possible to call a spade a spade. Life is a game of chance and if we whine when we don?t do better than break even, well, we certainly can?t be self-righteous abut others doing better than us. This I have learned in my bouts with naivete (aka ?naivite). I digress. It?s been a great Easter and first day of counting the omer. For fans of esoteric Judaism the omer is at hesod within hesod, loving-kindness within loving-kindness. Big day for love, gotta say. I was never a very good Christian. For many years I have been getting more and more Jew-ish (Getting rid of the hyphen would require converting). Now, thanks to taking on an hour-a-day meditation practice, I assert being Jew-Bhu-ish. If I explained the pun I would be man-splaining. Thanks to years and years of NAIVETE under my belt, I have avoided that trap. I digressed again. Shoot me. Henry > On Apr 1, 2018, at 1:39 PM, Larry Smolucha wrote: > > Message from Francine, > > > Henry, > > > What an interesting life you are having! It provides a real life illustration of how these social movements draw in a mix of people, some coming from conflicting value systems. Consider that Joseph Vissanionovich (Stalin) was not Russian but an anti-Russian Georgian rebel who usurped the Communist movement. He did not care about the lives of Russians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Cubans. etc. Did he ever have regard for the Georgian people, I wonder? > > > ________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 2:00 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > > Francine, > I was wannabe Weatherman in Cuba cutting sugar cane in the fall of 1969 wiIth the Venceremos Brigade at a small encampment called Aguacate. The brigade was a group of young Americans, I was the next-to oldest at 26. The oldest one was Vic, who had fought in the Spanish Civil War in the Venceremos Brigade (yes, us sugar cane cutters named ourselves in their honor) that started in 1936 and ended three years latter with the utter defeat of democracy, thanks in part to the betrayal by Stalin, who thought Russia had a better chance of survival if communism didn?t attract too much attention internationally. (Remember this was before his short-lived pact with Hitler.) Vic was still at his internationalist ways 30 years latter, when he cut sugar can alongside us young people. Things were very tense in the camp, largely due to the efforts of a group of Weathermen looking for more recruits to their cause back in the U.S. I didn?t make the cut, in fact was suspected of being an infiltrator of some kind from the right. I wasn?t really, though I was naive about the politics that was going on. I confess that naivite has been a a problem my whole life, though thanks to good luck I have survived to wince about very often. I think that most of the Weathermen were really good people, but at least one, named Tom, I believe was no better than Trump is now. I won?t say evil, but a prisoner to evil ideas. A potential in all of us. Tom said, as he attached me (verbally), ?Stalin was right.? I am guessing now that other Weathermen were also prisoners to this kind of thinking. I believe that their thinking may have appealed in a factual way to other white kids, mostly male, but it lacked the grounding of a Black Lives Matter#, MeToo#, and the Civil Rights movement led by Martin. That grounding makes a movement not only well grounded in fact, but also grounded in real-life experience. There?s a Russian word for this, a term used all the time on the chat?I am having a senior moment. In English I would say true, based on fact and authenticity. I would cut Black Lives Matter# and ME Too# a lot of slack as being true, precisely because they seem authentic, not just factual. If you get my drift. I suppose Stalin, back from the grave, would call the Weathermen adventurist. But I don?t think either Stalin, nor the Weathermen, were authentic. They were phonies. Stalin was just a more efficient phony. The Weathermen only ended up killing themselves. It?s probably a good time to stop. I am thinking of the song by Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton ?Say Something?, which is really a song about keeping your mouth shut. Oh well. Remember what I said about naivite. I guess I?m just wincesome guy. > Henry > > > > >> On Apr 1, 2018, at 7:08 AM, Larry Smolucha wrote: >> >> Message from Francine: >> >> >> Let's speak in metaphors - as in Henry's recurring dream - in order to see the magnificent panorama the bus must reach the very edge of the cliff but going off the cliff means disaster (which is averted by changing drivers at the last minute). Wouldn't it be ironic if the March for Lives movement resorts to violence (Weatherman style)? This is exactly what ruined the Black Lives Matters movement - the call for killing policemen (Blue Lives don't Matter). If the desired outcome is just to bring down the establishment, motives don't matter, ethics are irrelevant, the anarchist is just as useful (maybe more useful) than the idealist. Who ends up in the driver's seat is what matters - the anarchist will drive the bus off the cliff. >> >> >> There is a Tarot card- the Fool - who is distracted by some beautiful vision and about to step off the edge of a cliff. This is the beginning of the Major Arcana cycle of Tarot cards. It is about the Leap of Faith. In the third Indiana Jones movie, he has to walk out over the edge of the cliff and finds he is walking on invisible stones. >> >> >> The morale of the story: What matters is "Whose useful idiot are you?" >> >> >> ________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of HENRY SHONERD >> Sent: Sunday, April 1, 2018 6:28 AM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >> >> Greg, David, and All, >> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. >> >> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? >> >> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >> >> Henry >> >> >>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>> >>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov was all >>> about, but I do notice some eerie connections between Bezmenov's little >>> speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the March for our Lives kids (and >>> esp. the Parkland students): >>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mushy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul > [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] > > Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? > 13wham.com > (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s > > >> [http://static-39.sinclairstoryline.com/resources/media/8895a5f1-a703-4add-9270-cce4a70e390b-large16x9_20419E00BVONW.jpg?1522512134449] >> >> Ted Nugent: Parkland survivors ?mushy-brained children? who ?have no soul? >> 13wham.com >> (CIRCA) ? Rock star Ted Nugent says the students who survived a recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida are ?mushy-brained children.?Nugent adds that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have become gun control advocates after last month?s >> >> >>> Just noticing. >>> -greg >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>>> Francine: >>>> >>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov was a >>>> "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself was a "useful >>>> idiot". >>>> >>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at book length >>>> by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by Yongho Kim and myself >>>> in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>>> >>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed to >>>> amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of outcomes >>>> and not just motives. If the study of morality over history tells us >>>> anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come from pure >>>> motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>> >>>> David Kellogg >>>> Sangmyung University >>>> >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>> >>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>>> child?s first interrogatives >>>> >>>> >>>> Free e-print available at: >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> message from Francine: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding the 1984 >>>>> interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>> >>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Just for starters, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a nation >>>>> involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of rational >>>>> discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under the new social >>>> order. >>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>> "interference." >>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of unwitting >>>>> traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The recently >>>>> traumatized high school student March for Life activists are vulnerable >>>> to >>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle out out >>>>> or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few student activists >>>>> might have found their calling. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what could >>>>> have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, this is an >>>>> interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from this social >>>>> phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) Dr. Jack Getzels at >>>>> the University of Chicago talking about a study of student activists in >>>> the >>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders scored at >>>> the >>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just as many >>>>> were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ scholars or >>>>> activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ________________________________ >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>> >>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>> >>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>> interviews? >>>>> >>>>> mike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>> >>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>> Communism >>>>> youtu.be >>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. In >>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face of >>>>>> Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>> In >>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> >>>>>> on behalf of Carrie Lobman >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important session at >>>>> AERA >>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last years >>>>>> conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and more people, >>>>>> particularly graduate students, were identifying as activist scholars >>>> or >>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural and >>>>>> activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>> responsibility >>>>> to >>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to Do?>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>>> >>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It believes >>>>>> that historical development continues as long as it follows a straight >>>>>> line. When a change comes, a break in the historical fabric, a >>>> leap?then >>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the na?ve >>>>>> mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The scientific >>>>> mind >>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, forging >>>>>> ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch as the >>>> tangible, >>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those tasks >>>> which >>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true for >>>>>> revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory was born >>>>> of >>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments of the >>>>>> Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations is that it >>>>> does >>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his followers >>>>> located >>>>>> thei >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna Stetsenko >>>>>> agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a long history of >>>>>> rigorous scholarship and activism but from with different frameworks, >>>>>> activities and communities. These three presentations will jumpstart a >>>>>> conversation with an invited panel of emerging and established scholar >>>>>> activists who will collectively interview and respond to the >>>>> presentations >>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>> >>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>> >>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>> >>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>> >>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>> >>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>> http://www. >>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org> >>>> http://www< >>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>> p://www>. >>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> >> > > From helenaworthen@gmail.com Sun Apr 1 21:34:08 2018 From: helenaworthen@gmail.com (Helena Worthen) Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2018 10:19:08 +0545 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research In-Reply-To: <000301d3c9d5$a9c8c300$fd5a4900$@att.net> References: <1EA3ED80-ED54-446C-8B0B-A53BCD580A83@gmail.com> <000301d3c9d5$a9c8c300$fd5a4900$@att.net> Message-ID: <7E200E9B-84D4-4C20-88C7-408BACFB2133@gmail.com> Either we live differently, or we don?t live, I?m afraid. It?s going to be close. To my mind, the critical struggles are local. But these are the toughest ones to get engaged in ? the ones that affect people like oneself. For an academic, someone who wants to be part of a good educational program, the local fight has to be for the conditions under which that is possible. So it?s not indvidual, it?s collective, and it takes place in an activity system that is embedded in another system (or confronts such an activity system) that wants to sell diplomas, prestige, etc and degrade education. The purposes of the two systems are different and conflicting. This is hard to do because you don?t get promoted in the second system if you?re seriously engaged in the first. I continue to like Activity Theory becuase is clarifies some of these relationships. H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 Blog US/ Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com skype: helena.worthen1 > On Apr 1, 2018, at 10:07 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > > That's what I see, too, Helena, here. The Black Lives Movement has mutually recognized internal variations (including Black Lives Matter). In variability, as a psychology trained friend used to say, there is hope. I see the youth recognizing each other from other sections, consciously building on ties to past activism (troublemakers, as John Lewis says) as well as reciprocal nurturing from contemporary events (even ones that pop up inthe Senate and House) as they nevertheless persist and re-claim their time! Besides the boost to elders that newer aspects of movements bring with them, there are also new and likely effective tactics and recruitment that spur more dedication, creativity, motivation and, dare I say, movement? > > A young woman cashier at my local grocery store, uses the term "badges" to refer to what I call my pins (from different resistance issues and organizations ). I'm taking on that terminology! > As a part of getting dressed, I choose and arrange the badges; they silently answer the old union question, "What side are you on, my sister/brother?" and I often learn a lot from the answers other people give. > PG > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Helena Worthen > Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2018 11:17 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research > > None of these movements are brief and none of them are over. Occupy isn?t over; the smaller, more specific targeted efforts are still going. Black Lives Matter isn?t over by a long shot. The young Marchers may grow up, but so did we, but they won?t go away. The Weathermen and other SDS folks are writing their books about what they learned, what they did wrong, etc ? good reflections on the past. > > We?re in Kathmandu right now, where after 10 years of fighting, there is a Constitution and a delicate peace and the possibility of some actual economic development that may occur alongside movements towards equality across caste, language and ethnicity and gender. Everyone we talk to is exhausted from the years of war (and 10 years is not long; compare Viet Nam) but at the same time, although not exactly hopeful, at least expecting peace in the immediate future, and the opportunity to build something. > > Helena > > > Helena Worthen > helenaworthen@gmail.com > Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 > Blog US/ Viet Nam: > helenaworthen.wordpress.com > skype: helena.worthen1 > > > > > > > >> On Apr 1, 2018, at 5:41 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> I know that dream. It's a train for me, somewhere in London, or I'm on >> foot in Melbourne ... >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 1/04/2018 9:28 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >>> Greg, David, and All, >>> Let?s keep on eerie for a moment: I just had a recurrent dream, I >>> awoke at 4 in the morning and, as is often the case, I won?t be getting back to sleep for another half hour. The dream is that I am on a public mode of transportation, this time a bus, and I am feverishly headed somewhere, not knowing exactly where, but in this case it?s west (I?m pretty sure) on Central, yes Central, the name of the main east/west thoroughfare here in Albuquerque, but not Albuquerque in my dream. I have just made a mad scramble to get on this bus. Suddenly it turns south, which is not the direction I want to go. I scoot forward and ask the driver if this is where we will stay headed and he assures me we?ll be back going west in a minute. Suddenly the bus gets an unobstructed view from a cliff that overlooks a beautiful panaorama. Then just as suddenly we are edging over the edge of the cliff. Drivers change, the danger is averted, we?re on our way again, and I wake up. This is a recurrent dream, though it takes place in various places. This one reminds me (now that I am awake) of a small city in Spain I visited with my wife and son in 2009 famous for bullfighting, on the way west from Seville to Lisbon, In my waking life we had a destination, in my dream I did not. >>> >>> This gets us back to the subject line with Berzemenov. David juxtaposes motives and outcomes. Is life, either individually or collectively, about the journey or the destination? Do we have to know AND agree, either individually or collectively, with the destination? >>> >>> I?m headed back to bed. I?m debating whether to send this post. If I do, I will probably regret it. But I promise, either way, that I am not making up the dream. It really happened. And it is a recurrent dream: headed somewhere, don?t know where and never find out before I wake up (in this case) or go to another dream or back into a different stage of sleep. What?s different about this version of the dream is how beautiful a moment I had at that overlook. The same sort of the beautiful moment at our march in Albuquerque last weekend, a waking moment we were sharing as young people, motivated by the recurrent, senseless slaughter in schools here in the U.S., were trying to wake up the adults. When will we wake up? >>> >>> Henry >>> >>> >>>> On Mar 31, 2018, at 10:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>>> >>>> I'm still not quite sure I understand what the pointer to Bezmenov >>>> was all about, but I do notice some eerie connections between >>>> Bezmenov's little speech and Ted Nugent's recent rant about the >>>> March for our Lives kids (and esp. the Parkland students): >>>> http://13wham.com/news/nation-world/ted-nugent-parkland-survivors-mu >>>> shy-brained-children-who-have-no-soul >>>> Just noticing. >>>> -greg >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:51 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>>> >>>>> Francine: >>>>> >>>>> First of all, we are all useful idiots. Just for example, Bezemenov >>>>> was a "useful idiot" for the John Birchers. And John Birch himself >>>>> was a "useful idiot". >>>>> >>>>> Secondly, the Larry Kohlberg studies were rightly criticized at >>>>> book length by Carol Gilligan (and at somewhat shorter length by >>>>> Yongho Kim and myself in "Rocks and a Hard Place", in Language and Education in 2015. >>>>> >>>>> Thirdly, one of the things that makes people activists, as opposed >>>>> to amateur news therapists, is that we focus on the desirability of >>>>> outcomes and not just motives. If the study of morality over >>>>> history tells us anything, it is that only bad outcomes ever come >>>>> from pure motives. Progress, like development, is always complexly motivated. >>>>> >>>>> David Kellogg >>>>> Sangmyung University >>>>> >>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>>> >>>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, >>>>> and the child?s first interrogatives >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Free e-print available at: >>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 12:29 PM, Larry Smolucha >>>>> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> message from Francine: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Here are some points for activist/scholars to consider regarding >>>>>> the 1984 interview with Soviet KGB defector Yuri Berzmenov. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Here's the link (again): >>>>>> >>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>>> >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>>> of Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Just for starters, >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. Yuir Bezmenov provides a working model for destabilizing a >>>>>> nation involving processes such as demoralization, abandonment of >>>>>> rational discourse, instigating crises, and normalization under >>>>>> the new social >>>>> order. >>>>>> 2. This interview is from 1984 so it is also old news of Russian >>>>>> "interference." >>>>>> 3. Apparently, there is no actual citation from Lenin of his having >>>>>> used the term "useful idiots' to describe the manipulation of >>>>>> unwitting traumatized people by someone with ulterior motives. The >>>>>> recently traumatized high school student March for Life activists >>>>>> are vulnerable >>>>> to >>>>>> such manipulation. No one knows whether the movement will fizzle >>>>>> out out or even produce voters on election day. Certainly a few >>>>>> student activists might have found their calling. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> The nerve of me posting something like this that interrupts what >>>>>> could have been a seamless narrative on XMCA. But as scholars, >>>>>> this is an interesting opportunity to study this (and learn) from >>>>>> this social phenomenon (March for Lives). I remember (years ago) >>>>>> Dr. Jack Getzels at the University of Chicago talking about a >>>>>> study of student activists in >>>>> the >>>>>> 1960's that found some of the most committed student leaders >>>>>> scored at >>>>> the >>>>>> highest level of Kohlberg's stages of moral development but just >>>>>> as many were anarchists at the lowest level. Are activist/ >>>>>> scholars or activist/teachers all of one type? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> on behalf of mike cole >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:45 PM >>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Francine- >>>>>> >>>>>> What sort of lesson would you like us to take from Mr. Bezmenov's >>>>>> interviews? >>>>>> >>>>>> mike >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:21 AM, Larry Smolucha >>>>>> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Message from Francine Smolucha: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> This link has an interview that would be of interest to >>>>>> activist./scholars >>>>>>> >>>>>>> https://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ >>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>> >>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>>> of Communism >>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to >>>>>> crisis. In this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4kHiUAjTvQ/hqdefault.jpg]>>>>>> ps://youtu.be/K4kHiUAjTvQ> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Yuri Bezmenov - KGB Defector on "Useful Idiots" and the True Face >>>>>>> of Communism >>>>>>> youtu.be >>>>>>> The USA is at this moment a destabilized nation on the way to crisis. >>>>> In >>>>>>> this interview from 1984, Yuri Bezmenov articulates the method. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 9:33 AM >>>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] AERA Session: Being/Becoming an Activist Scholar: >>>>>>> Lessons From Cultural-Historical Activity Research >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Hello XMCAers, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I am very pleased to be chairing this timely and important >>>>>>> session at >>>>>> AERA >>>>>>> in a few weeks (Monday April 16). The idea for Being/Becoming an >>>>>>> Activist-Scholar was born at last >>>>>>> years conference in San Antonio where I felt a shift as more and >>>>>>> more people, particularly graduate students, were identifying as >>>>>>> activist scholars >>>>> or >>>>>>> were seeking to engage in activism. I believe as socio-cultural >>>>>>> and activitists we have much to offer this conversation and a >>>>> responsibility >>>>>> to >>>>>>> lead and teach. >>>>>>> What Is a 21st-Century Activist Scholar to >>>>>>> Do?>>>>> ybdkh6kw >>>>>>> tinyurl.com >>>>>>> To the na?ve mind revolution and history seem incompatible. It >>>>>>> believes that historical development continues as long as it >>>>>>> follows a straight line. When a change comes, a break in the >>>>>>> historical fabric, a >>>>> leap?then >>>>>>> this na?ve mind sees only catastrophe, a fall, a rupture; for the >>>>>>> na?ve mind history ends until back again straight and narrow. The >>>>>>> scientific >>>>>> mind >>>>>>> on the contrary, views revolution as the locomotive of history, >>>>>>> forging ahead at full speed; it regards the revolutionary epoch >>>>>>> as the >>>>> tangible, >>>>>>> living embodiment of history. A revolution solves only those >>>>>>> tasks >>>>> which >>>>>>> have been raised by history; this proposition holds equally true >>>>>>> for revolution in general and for aspects of social and cultural life. >>>>>>> (Vygotsky as quoted in Leviathan, 1982). Socio-cultural theory >>>>>>> was born >>>>>> of >>>>>>> activism. It emerged in the early, most improvisational moments >>>>>>> of the Russian Revolution, and one of its continuing provocations >>>>>>> is that it >>>>>> does >>>>>>> not claim to be objective or apolitical. Vygotsky and his >>>>>>> followers >>>>>> located >>>>>>> thei >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I was thrilled that Kris Guitierrez, Lois Holzman, and Anna >>>>>>> Stetsenko agreed to be our featured speakers as they each bring a >>>>>>> long history of rigorous scholarship and activism but from with >>>>>>> different frameworks, activities and communities. These three >>>>>>> presentations will jumpstart a conversation with an invited panel >>>>>>> of emerging and established scholar activists who will >>>>>>> collectively interview and respond to the >>>>>> presentations >>>>>>> and lead a discussion with the audience. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Please get the word out as widely as possible. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/y7zguva7 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Carrie >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Graduate School of Education >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Rutgers University >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.gse.rutgers.edu >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.eastsideinstitute.org>>>> http://www. >>>>>> eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>>> ttp://www.eastsideinstitute.org >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> www.performingtheworld.org>>>> http://www< >>>>>> http://www.performingtheworld.org>>>>> g>>>>> p://www>. >>>>>>> performingtheworld.org> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>> Assistant Professor >>>> Department of Anthropology >>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>> Brigham Young University >>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>> >> > > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Apr 2 14:40:51 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 06:40:51 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] The Becomeliness of the Young Message-ID: Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates a strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely what is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused on the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how the different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is first phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me is the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not entity. In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky is trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the Social Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural maturation"; in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is getting earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and later. This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never quite being. Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, processes that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached India" or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based on something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in proportion to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: in the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is now based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which are iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is equal to the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian solution addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment as a process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not simply an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of English is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did iin Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. Adolescence, like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not an object being acted upon by a subject. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full From hshonerd@gmail.com Tue Apr 3 08:54:12 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 09:54:12 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Becomeliness of the Young In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> David, I was thinking about ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the young thanks to your post and the movie that my wife and I watched last night (at home): Lady Bird. Here?s a review of the movie: http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida-project-coming-of-age-movies-oscars-1201936864/ I was wondering whether you or others find this triangle (ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the young) compelling, or even interesting. Lady Bird is about the coming of a girl in her senior year at a Catholic high school in Sacramento, California, coincidentally where I went to college as an undergraduate. The movie resonates with Stand By Me, a coming of age movie I liked a lot.The difference is that Lady Bird is about an adolescent-to-adult transformation of a someone becoming a woman and Stand by Me is a boy-to-adolescent transformation of a boy. Another big difference is that adults are majorly present in Lady Bird and non-existent in Stand By Me. My wife thinks Lady Bird was too long and fell asleep during several scenes. I?m glad I stayed awake, though the movie wasn?t the roller coaster ride of Get Out. (Which, by the way, is a coming of age in adulthood.) Anyway, I am very interested in what is called free will and making choices. All three of the movies I cite are about making choices, choices made by characters with agency, but would you call their choices out of free will. Or is it more an ergative process? Becoming, a form and/or a noun logogentically. It is not a subject acting on an object, as in ?My mother made me do it". In Lady Bird both mother and father are major parts of the girl?s Social Situation of Development, but she is certainly making choices that conflict with the wishes of her mother. Yet, at the end of the movie, you can see her mom had a huge influence on her choices. Lady Bird was free in the sense of coming to understand these influences AND, arguably, free because she worked through the crises unalienated from her mother. I think I like this movie most because of how parents are an integral and positive (thought troubled) part of the becomilness of this young Lady Bird, somwhere between a girl and a woman. Perhaps you, or others, can think of other movies about the becomliness of other girls/boys becoming women/men . Or books. Or whatever. I realize now that your new subject line resonates totally with previous posts on activism out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas. I want to remember her name, just as I remember the name of Amy Biehl, the name of a highschool in Albuquerque where my son is now teaching. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl ). Marjory lived to be old. Amy died young in South Africa in the fight against aparteid. I would live to tell anyone listening how she died. It will make you cry in joy and pain. But that?s for another post, if anyone cares. Herny > On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates a > strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in > Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely what > is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the > text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused on > the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how the > different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other > directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is first > phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. > > Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me is > the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not entity. > In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky is > trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in > some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the Social > Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the > non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural maturation"; > in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is getting > earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and later. > This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the > young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never > quite being. > > Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, processes > that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the > opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the > product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems > related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as > Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, > from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached India" > or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based on > something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in proportion > to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. > > But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: in > the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is now > based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which are > iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is equal to > the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian solution > addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment as a > process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not simply > an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of English > is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did iin > Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. Adolescence, > like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not an > object being acted upon by a subject. > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full From dkellogg60@gmail.com Tue Apr 3 15:00:04 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 07:00:04 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Becomeliness of the Young In-Reply-To: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> References: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks, Henry--you read a lot better than I write: I didn't actually mention free will, but of course that IS the highest form of behavior and the Central Neoformation of adolescence! I also much appreciated the links to reviews, as I never watch Western movies (not because I can't stay awake but because they sometimes trigger a recurring nightmare of my own--I guess we have all led interesting lives somewhere...). I do hope that Peter (Feigenbaum) hasn't ghosted on this conversation, because I think that the emergence of free will in adolescence ("coming of age", in most cultures) is related to the issue he raised earlier, the issue of whether conscious awareness precedes or follows decision making and all of its consequences. In the days of Chomskyan hegemony in linguistics, this was thought of in terms of "performance before competence", as opposed to "competence before performance".This way of posing the problem, however, inevitably introduces an unhelpful dualism. Since competence is really only accessible through performance, it is (as Laplace remarked to Napoleon a propos the use of God in his cosmology) a hypothesis of which we have no need. All we really need is the notion of meaning potential, something that is constantly being made meaning actual and thus activating new potential in turn. Awareness isn't something separate from this cycle; it forms part of it at every point. This is not just Halliday; it's the way that Vygotsky introduces "deliberate semantics" in Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech, and thus forms another important NEW point that is lost when we focus only on what is OLD in Vygotsky. Why does Vygotsky distinguish between "phasic" and "semantic" aspects of speech? It turns out that the "phasal" properties of language are ALL the syntagmatic ones--not just syntax, but also the stringing together of morpho-phonemes into lexeme-syllables, of lexeme-syllables into clause-utterances, and even of clause-utterances into paragraphs. It is all the stuff that "follows on" in language, including transitivity and ergativity. But the way you "follow on" is by choosing stuff that "fits in". You get to choose (for example, you get to choose whether you will say "Let's play a game", as adults do, or just "Let's play" as little children do, and if you choose the "game", you can choose to name the game or leave it to others. Both choosing and not choosing are choices, and such choices happen at every level: when we spell a word, when we make a sentence, when we write a posting for xmca. It's free will, because at every point there is a recognition of necessity. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 12:54 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > David, > I was thinking about ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the > young thanks to your post and the movie that my wife and I watched last > night (at home): Lady Bird. Here?s a review of the movie: > > http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida- > project-coming-of-age-movies-oscars-1201936864/ 2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida-project-coming-of-age-movies- > oscars-1201936864/> > > I was wondering whether you or others find this triangle (ergativity, free > will and the becomliness of the young) compelling, or even interesting. > Lady Bird is about the coming of a girl in her senior year at a Catholic > high school in Sacramento, California, coincidentally where I went to > college as an undergraduate. The movie resonates with Stand By Me, a coming > of age movie I liked a lot.The difference is that Lady Bird is about an > adolescent-to-adult transformation of a someone becoming a woman and Stand > by Me is a boy-to-adolescent transformation of a boy. Another big > difference is that adults are majorly present in Lady Bird and non-existent > in Stand By Me. My wife thinks Lady Bird was too long and fell asleep > during several scenes. I?m glad I stayed awake, though the movie wasn?t the > roller coaster ride of Get Out. (Which, by the way, is a coming of age in > adulthood.) Anyway, I am very interested in what is called free will and > making choices. All three of the movies I cite are about making choices, > choices made by characters with agency, but would you call their choices > out of free will. Or is it more an ergative process? Becoming, a form > and/or a noun logogentically. It is not a subject acting on an object, as > in ?My mother made me do it". In Lady Bird both mother and father are major > parts of the girl?s Social Situation of Development, but she is certainly > making choices that conflict with the wishes of her mother. Yet, at the end > of the movie, you can see her mom had a huge influence on her choices. Lady > Bird was free in the sense of coming to understand these influences AND, > arguably, free because she worked through the crises unalienated from her > mother. I think I like this movie most because of how parents are an > integral and positive (thought troubled) part of the becomilness of this > young Lady Bird, somwhere between a girl and a woman. Perhaps you, or > others, can think of other movies about the becomliness of other girls/boys > becoming women/men . Or books. Or whatever. > > I realize now that your new subject line resonates totally with previous > posts on activism out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas. < > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas> I want to > remember her name, just as I remember the name of Amy Biehl, the name of a > highschool in Albuquerque where my son is now teaching. ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl wiki/Amy_Biehl>). Marjory lived to be old. Amy died young in South Africa > in the fight against aparteid. I would live to tell anyone listening how > she died. It will make you cry in joy and pain. But that?s for another > post, if anyone cares. > > Herny > > > > On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > > > Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates a > > strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in > > Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely > what > > is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the > > text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused on > > the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how > the > > different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other > > directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is > first > > phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. > > > > Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me is > > the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not > entity. > > In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky is > > trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in > > some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the Social > > Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the > > non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural > maturation"; > > in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is > getting > > earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and > later. > > This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the > > young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never > > quite being. > > > > Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, processes > > that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the > > opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the > > product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems > > related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as > > Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, > > from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached India" > > or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based on > > something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in proportion > > to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. > > > > But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: > in > > the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is > now > > based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which are > > iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is equal > to > > the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian solution > > addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment as > a > > process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not > simply > > an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of English > > is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did iin > > Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. > Adolescence, > > like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not > an > > object being acted upon by a subject. > > > > David Kellogg > > Sangmyung University > > > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > > child?s first interrogatives > > > > > > Free e-print available at: > > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > From hshonerd@gmail.com Tue Apr 3 16:55:51 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 17:55:51 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Becomeliness of the Young In-Reply-To: References: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6163C3C2-D820-4167-AA5B-D8CC5120CD44@gmail.com> Dude, I was going to go for a walk, having done more thinking today than usuall because I get literally feverish. But let?s play in a child?s way, without exactly naming the game, but implying it with gesture in language. With emails so much dependent on timing and sequencing of the posts, the calls and responses. This is syntagmatics and forms its own field and vice versa. This is our dialog relating our takes on this and that. Pointing subtly (ha!), like my Navajo friends, with their lips slightly pointing by pouting, at the name of the game, thus telling a story instead. Here?s a move, a gesture for you, that Halliday and Langacker can, through us, talk to each other, even if neither one of us can talk respectfully (at least yet) with Chomsky. I have already been humbled on this chat for my presumptiousness in critcizing Chomsky. I confess anyway that I don?t entirely understand what you said about Chomsky. If I understood better, maybe I could understand how I could talk to him without making a damn fool of myself. So, I won?t name the game, but that?s my drash on what it is we?re playing. ?drash? in Yiddsh, is a clipping from Herbrew ?midrash?, translated broadly as ?exegesis.? All of this gesturing makes me think that when we say syntagmatic it is not two dimensional. Not just sequencing along a single temporal line, but across zeitgeists. All of these nods to linguistics should not mean we are playing at linguistics. That would be naming the game. Finally, or this will never end, I appreciated your whole damned email. Got to go for that walk! Henry > On Apr 3, 2018, at 4:00 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > Thanks, Henry--you read a lot better than I write: I didn't actually > mention free will, but of course that IS the highest form of behavior and > the Central Neoformation of adolescence! I also much appreciated the links > to reviews, as I never watch Western movies (not because I can't stay awake > but because they sometimes trigger a recurring nightmare of my own--I guess > we have all led interesting lives somewhere...). > > I do hope that Peter (Feigenbaum) hasn't ghosted on this conversation, > because I think that the emergence of free will in adolescence ("coming of > age", in most cultures) is related to the issue he raised earlier, the > issue of whether conscious awareness precedes or follows decision making > and all of its consequences. In the days of Chomskyan hegemony in > linguistics, this was thought of in terms of "performance before > competence", as opposed to "competence before performance".This way of > posing the problem, however, inevitably introduces an unhelpful dualism. > Since competence is really only accessible through performance, it is (as > Laplace remarked to Napoleon a propos the use of God in his cosmology) a > hypothesis of which we have no need. All we really need is the notion of > meaning potential, something that is constantly being made meaning actual > and thus activating new potential in turn. Awareness isn't something > separate from this cycle; it forms part of it at every point. This is not > just Halliday; it's the way that Vygotsky introduces "deliberate > semantics" in Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech, and thus forms another > important NEW point that is lost when we focus only on what is OLD in > Vygotsky. > > Why does Vygotsky distinguish between "phasic" and "semantic" aspects of > speech? It turns out that the "phasal" properties of language are ALL the > syntagmatic ones--not just syntax, but also the stringing together of > morpho-phonemes into lexeme-syllables, of lexeme-syllables into > clause-utterances, and even of clause-utterances into paragraphs. It is all > the stuff that "follows on" in language, including transitivity and > ergativity. But the way you "follow on" is by choosing stuff that "fits > in". You get to choose (for example, you get to choose whether you will say > "Let's play a game", as adults do, or just "Let's play" as little children > do, and if you choose the "game", you can choose to name the game or leave > it to others. Both choosing and not choosing are choices, and such choices > happen at every level: when we spell a word, when we make a sentence, when > we write a posting for xmca. It's free will, because at every point there > is a recognition of necessity. > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 12:54 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > >> David, >> I was thinking about ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the >> young thanks to your post and the movie that my wife and I watched last >> night (at home): Lady Bird. Here?s a review of the movie: >> >> http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida- >> project-coming-of-age-movies-oscars-1201936864/ > 2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida-project-coming-of-age-movies- >> oscars-1201936864/> >> >> I was wondering whether you or others find this triangle (ergativity, free >> will and the becomliness of the young) compelling, or even interesting. >> Lady Bird is about the coming of a girl in her senior year at a Catholic >> high school in Sacramento, California, coincidentally where I went to >> college as an undergraduate. The movie resonates with Stand By Me, a coming >> of age movie I liked a lot.The difference is that Lady Bird is about an >> adolescent-to-adult transformation of a someone becoming a woman and Stand >> by Me is a boy-to-adolescent transformation of a boy. Another big >> difference is that adults are majorly present in Lady Bird and non-existent >> in Stand By Me. My wife thinks Lady Bird was too long and fell asleep >> during several scenes. I?m glad I stayed awake, though the movie wasn?t the >> roller coaster ride of Get Out. (Which, by the way, is a coming of age in >> adulthood.) Anyway, I am very interested in what is called free will and >> making choices. All three of the movies I cite are about making choices, >> choices made by characters with agency, but would you call their choices >> out of free will. Or is it more an ergative process? Becoming, a form >> and/or a noun logogentically. It is not a subject acting on an object, as >> in ?My mother made me do it". In Lady Bird both mother and father are major >> parts of the girl?s Social Situation of Development, but she is certainly >> making choices that conflict with the wishes of her mother. Yet, at the end >> of the movie, you can see her mom had a huge influence on her choices. Lady >> Bird was free in the sense of coming to understand these influences AND, >> arguably, free because she worked through the crises unalienated from her >> mother. I think I like this movie most because of how parents are an >> integral and positive (thought troubled) part of the becomilness of this >> young Lady Bird, somwhere between a girl and a woman. Perhaps you, or >> others, can think of other movies about the becomliness of other girls/boys >> becoming women/men . Or books. Or whatever. >> >> I realize now that your new subject line resonates totally with previous >> posts on activism out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas: >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas. < >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas> I want to >> remember her name, just as I remember the name of Amy Biehl, the name of a >> highschool in Albuquerque where my son is now teaching. ( >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl > wiki/Amy_Biehl>). Marjory lived to be old. Amy died young in South Africa >> in the fight against aparteid. I would live to tell anyone listening how >> she died. It will make you cry in joy and pain. But that?s for another >> post, if anyone cares. >> >> Herny >> >> >>> On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>> Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates a >>> strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in >>> Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely >> what >>> is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the >>> text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused on >>> the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how >> the >>> different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other >>> directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is >> first >>> phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. >>> >>> Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me is >>> the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not >> entity. >>> In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky is >>> trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in >>> some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the Social >>> Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the >>> non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural >> maturation"; >>> in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is >> getting >>> earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and >> later. >>> This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the >>> young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never >>> quite being. >>> >>> Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, processes >>> that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the >>> opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the >>> product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems >>> related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as >>> Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, >>> from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached India" >>> or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based on >>> something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in proportion >>> to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. >>> >>> But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: >> in >>> the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is >> now >>> based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which are >>> iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is equal >> to >>> the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian solution >>> addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment as >> a >>> process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not >> simply >>> an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of English >>> is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did iin >>> Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. >> Adolescence, >>> like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not >> an >>> object being acted upon by a subject. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> Sangmyung University >>> >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>> >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>> child?s first interrogatives >>> >>> >>> Free e-print available at: >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >> >> From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 3 21:10:05 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2018 21:10:05 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 Message-ID: For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of his murder. It is called "The Road to Memphis." Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. mike mike From dkirsh@lsu.edu Tue Apr 3 22:51:02 2018 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 05:51:02 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There's a striking contrast between MLK's embodied heroism, and the ideological pacifism that Gandhi came to expound (see Delancey Place excerpt on Gandhi and Hitler, appended below). David -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 11:10 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of his murder. It is called "The Road to Memphis." Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. mike _________________ From: DelanceyPlace.com On Behalf Of DelanceyPlace.com Subject: mahatma gandhi and adolf hitler -- 3/29/18 Today's selection -- from Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann. Gandhi advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini, and advised Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime: "Gandhi's position on nonviolence was absolute. Aggression could never be returned. He did not believe that women should resist rape, but preferred that they should 'defeat' their assailants by remaining passive and silent. Correspondingly, he did not believe that the victims of war should resist attackers by physical force, but rather ought to offer satyagraha -- that is, noncompliance with the invaders. 'If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race would be completely justified,' he wrote. 'But I do not believe in any war.' "He advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini: 'Let them take possession of your beautiful island ... allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.' Furthermore, in one of his most controversial arguments, Gandhi advised the Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime -- and to give up their own lives as sacrifices. He told the Jews to pray for Adolf Hitler. 'If even one Jew acted thus,' he wrote, 'he would salve his self respect and leave an example which, if it became infectious, would save the whole of Jewry and leave a rich heritage to mankind besides.' "Gandhi compounded this error of judgment by offering praise to Hitler. 'I do not consider Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted,' he wrote in May 1940. 'He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed. ' Apparently, he saw some parallel between his own efforts to return India to the Indians and Hitler's invasion of French territory to reclaim that lost to Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. He regretted that Hitler had employed war rather than nonviolence to achieve his aims, but nonetheless averred that the Germans of the future 'will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.' "The American journalist Louis Fischer brought up this subject with Gandhi in 1946. By that time, the concentration camps had been discovered, and the true, awful extent of the Holocaust revealed. It might have been expected that the benefit of hindsight would have tempered the old man's views. It had not. 'Hitler killed five million Jews,' Gandhi told Fischer, 'It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. . . . . As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.' " From andyb@marxists.org Tue Apr 3 23:00:58 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 16:00:58 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <318aaf45-6193-1470-08ae-e9c97b727d45@marxists.org> Gandhi was not an ideological pacifist. He advocated non-violent struggle, and he was enormously influential in the struggle of which King was a part. And Gandhi can hardly be accused of not "embodying" that practice. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 4/04/2018 3:51 PM, David H Kirshner wrote: > There's a striking contrast between MLK's embodied heroism, and the ideological pacifism that Gandhi came to expound (see Delancey Place excerpt on Gandhi and Hitler, appended below). > David > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 11:10 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 > > For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of his murder. > It is called "The Road to Memphis." > > Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. > > Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. > > mike > > _________________ > > > From: DelanceyPlace.com On Behalf Of DelanceyPlace.com > Subject: mahatma gandhi and adolf hitler -- 3/29/18 > > Today's selection -- from Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann. Gandhi advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini, and advised Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime: > > "Gandhi's position on nonviolence was absolute. Aggression could never be returned. He did not believe that women should resist rape, but preferred that they should 'defeat' their assailants by remaining passive and silent. Correspondingly, he did not believe that the victims of war should resist attackers by physical force, but rather ought to offer satyagraha -- that is, noncompliance with the invaders. 'If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race would be completely justified,' he wrote. 'But I do not believe in any war.' > > "He advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini: 'Let them take possession of your beautiful island ... allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.' Furthermore, in one of his most controversial arguments, Gandhi advised the Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime -- and to give up their own lives as sacrifices. He told the Jews to pray for Adolf Hitler. 'If even one Jew acted thus,' he wrote, 'he would salve his self respect and leave an example which, if it became infectious, would save the whole of Jewry and leave a rich heritage to mankind besides.' > > "Gandhi compounded this error of judgment by offering praise to Hitler. 'I do not consider Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted,' he wrote in May 1940. 'He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed. ' Apparently, he saw some parallel between his own efforts to return India to the Indians and Hitler's invasion of French territory to reclaim that lost to Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. He regretted that Hitler had employed war rather than nonviolence to achieve his aims, but nonetheless averred that the Germans of the future 'will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.' > > "The American journalist Louis Fischer brought up this subject with Gandhi in 1946. By that time, the concentration camps had been discovered, and the true, awful extent of the Holocaust revealed. It might have been expected that the benefit of hindsight would have tempered the old man's views. It had not. 'Hitler killed five million Jews,' Gandhi told Fischer, 'It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. . . . . As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.' " > > From dkirsh@lsu.edu Wed Apr 4 00:13:04 2018 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2018 07:13:04 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 In-Reply-To: <318aaf45-6193-1470-08ae-e9c97b727d45@marxists.org> References: <318aaf45-6193-1470-08ae-e9c97b727d45@marxists.org> Message-ID: Gandhi translated his embodied and heroic struggle in India into a universal principle that he espoused. In the early phase, his actions had living meaning that radiated out beyond his particular circumstances. The irony is that in embracing that meaning as a universal principle diminished it. David -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Wednesday, April 4, 2018 1:01 AM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 Gandhi was not an ideological pacifist. He advocated non-violent struggle, and he was enormously influential in the struggle of which King was a part. And Gandhi can hardly be accused of not "embodying" that practice. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 4/04/2018 3:51 PM, David H Kirshner wrote: > There's a striking contrast between MLK's embodied heroism, and the ideological pacifism that Gandhi came to expound (see Delancey Place excerpt on Gandhi and Hitler, appended below). > David > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 11:10 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 > > For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of his murder. > It is called "The Road to Memphis." > > Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. > > Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. > > mike > > _________________ > > > From: DelanceyPlace.com On Behalf Of > DelanceyPlace.com > Subject: mahatma gandhi and adolf hitler -- 3/29/18 > > Today's selection -- from Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann. Gandhi advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini, and advised Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime: > > "Gandhi's position on nonviolence was absolute. Aggression could never be returned. He did not believe that women should resist rape, but preferred that they should 'defeat' their assailants by remaining passive and silent. Correspondingly, he did not believe that the victims of war should resist attackers by physical force, but rather ought to offer satyagraha -- that is, noncompliance with the invaders. 'If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race would be completely justified,' he wrote. 'But I do not believe in any war.' > > "He advised the British to give up the fight against Hitler and Mussolini: 'Let them take possession of your beautiful island ... allow yourself, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.' Furthermore, in one of his most controversial arguments, Gandhi advised the Jews in Germany to offer passive resistance to the Nazi regime -- and to give up their own lives as sacrifices. He told the Jews to pray for Adolf Hitler. 'If even one Jew acted thus,' he wrote, 'he would salve his self respect and leave an example which, if it became infectious, would save the whole of Jewry and leave a rich heritage to mankind besides.' > > "Gandhi compounded this error of judgment by offering praise to Hitler. 'I do not consider Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted,' he wrote in May 1940. 'He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed. ' Apparently, he saw some parallel between his own efforts to return India to the Indians and Hitler's invasion of French territory to reclaim that lost to Germany under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War. He regretted that Hitler had employed war rather than nonviolence to achieve his aims, but nonetheless averred that the Germans of the future 'will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more.' > > "The American journalist Louis Fischer brought up this subject with Gandhi in 1946. By that time, the concentration camps had been discovered, and the true, awful extent of the Holocaust revealed. It might have been expected that the benefit of hindsight would have tempered the old man's views. It had not. 'Hitler killed five million Jews,' Gandhi told Fischer, 'It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. . . . . As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.' " > > From Peg.Griffin@att.net Wed Apr 4 21:26:38 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2018 00:26:38 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d3cc96$4b08b960$e11a2c20$@att.net> A picture is attached from our Library of Congress archive. In the twenties and thirties, the NAACP used a banner from its Fifth Avenue office window to spread the word of outside the south and outside the black community when lynchings took place: ?A man was lynched yesterday.? Anyone have a Fifth Avenue window for hanging a banner: ?The police shot an unarmed person yesterday.? -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2018 12:10 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of his murder. It is called "The Road to Memphis." Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. mike mike -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NAACP 5th Avenue banner.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 155402 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180405/ae970dbe/attachment.jpg From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Thu Apr 5 01:38:10 2018 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2018 11:38:10 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: April 3 In-Reply-To: <000001d3cc96$4b08b960$e11a2c20$@att.net> References: <000001d3cc96$4b08b960$e11a2c20$@att.net> Message-ID: https://www.liberationnews.org/king-family-lawyer-fbi-and-hoover-killed-mlk-jr-without-a-doubt/ On 5 April 2018 at 07:26, Peg Griffin wrote: > A picture is attached from our Library of Congress archive. > In the twenties and thirties, the NAACP used a banner from its Fifth > Avenue office window to spread the word of outside the south and outside > the black community when lynchings took place: > ?A man was lynched yesterday.? > Anyone have a Fifth Avenue window for hanging a banner: ?The police shot > an unarmed person yesterday.? > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2018 12:10 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] April 3 > > For those of you who have never watched Martin Luther speak, I recommend > that you check out the PBS news program that is playing tonight, the eve of > his murder. > It is called "The Road to Memphis." > > Particularly relevant to the conversation on activism here on xmca is his > absolute refusal to allow those around him to carry weapons. The program > gives you some idea of how he could live with the knowledge that he was > publicly in one or more killers' sights as he spoke. > > Check it out. The impact of his words-as-spoken-in-context are even more > powerful than their appearance in print in Peg's earlier note. > > mike > > mike > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Apr 5 18:02:28 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 10:02:28 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Becomeliness of the Young In-Reply-To: <6163C3C2-D820-4167-AA5B-D8CC5120CD44@gmail.com> References: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> <6163C3C2-D820-4167-AA5B-D8CC5120CD44@gmail.com> Message-ID: Henry-- Yes, the distinction between phasal and semantic is Chapter Six of Thinking and Speech, and it's in the context of foreign language teaching: in the foreign language, we get the phasal aspects before the semantics, and in native language learning it's the other way around. This is a much more precise and useful way of thinking about it than "performance before competence" (Courtney Cazden) or "competence before performance" (Chomsky), both of which ignore the fact that children speak very small languages. And that's where we really have to tweak the matrix of phasal (syntagmatic) and semantic (paradigmatic) a little. Saussure did this by using "associative" instead of paradigmatic: he thought that associations could go every which way, and so it didn't make sense to think of a fixed menu of options the way you really have to in order to arrive at a synoptic description of what people are doing when they construct a clause. Besides, associative psychology is a mug's game: as Vygotsky says, it's either ridiculous or meaningless or both. But it DOES make sense to think of the semantic paradigm as organized from concrete to abstract, or specific to general, or sense to signification. And it does make sense to think of the phasal syntagm as proceding always from given information to new, and from the speaker's point of view to the necessarily more general one of the hearer. As we ascend the semantic axis towards the abstract, we do find that it includes more and more information from the context of culture and less and less from the context of situation, and this does seem to bend the axis towards the syntagmatic (e.g. when the next idea that "follows on" is actually an example, or an elaboration, rather than a new idea). Similarly, as we follow the syntagmatic axis through proof-reading and proof-hearing, we find that it bends in the direction of the paradigmatic (e.g. when the discourse leaves the immediate context and seeks to generalize, as we've been doing on this thread). This means that the two axes will eventually be meet, as it were, at the antipode of the origin (e.g. number instead of concrete object). Do you know this Handbook of Educational Psych by I. Weiner? Well, Chapter Seven is a very interesting paper by John-Steiner and Mahn which cites a mysterious and enigmatic H. Shonerd on classroom meaning making in foreign language teaching. Shonerd describes self-repair in the foreign language classroom, and then he cites Wolfgang Klein: "Language learning is making a raincoat in the rain". It makes more sense in Korean; there is a traditional kind of rain coat here made of roofing rice stalks tied together. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 8:55 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > Dude, > I was going to go for a walk, having done more thinking today than usuall > because I get literally feverish. But let?s play in a child?s way, without > exactly naming the game, but implying it with gesture in language. With > emails so much dependent on timing and sequencing of the posts, the calls > and responses. This is syntagmatics and forms its own field and vice versa. > This is our dialog relating our takes on this and that. Pointing subtly > (ha!), like my Navajo friends, with their lips slightly pointing by > pouting, at the name of the game, thus telling a story instead. Here?s a > move, a gesture for you, that Halliday and Langacker can, through us, talk > to each other, even if neither one of us can talk respectfully (at least > yet) with Chomsky. I have already been humbled on this chat for my > presumptiousness in critcizing Chomsky. I confess anyway that I don?t > entirely understand what you said about Chomsky. If I understood better, > maybe I could understand how I could talk to him without making a damn fool > of myself. So, I won?t name the game, but that?s my drash on what it is > we?re playing. ?drash? in Yiddsh, is a clipping from Herbrew ?midrash?, > translated broadly as ?exegesis.? All of this gesturing makes me think that > when we say syntagmatic it is not two dimensional. Not just sequencing > along a single temporal line, but across zeitgeists. All of these nods to > linguistics should not mean we are playing at linguistics. That would be > naming the game. > > Finally, or this will never end, I appreciated your whole damned email. > Got to go for that walk! > > Henry > > > On Apr 3, 2018, at 4:00 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > > > Thanks, Henry--you read a lot better than I write: I didn't actually > > mention free will, but of course that IS the highest form of behavior and > > the Central Neoformation of adolescence! I also much appreciated the > links > > to reviews, as I never watch Western movies (not because I can't stay > awake > > but because they sometimes trigger a recurring nightmare of my own--I > guess > > we have all led interesting lives somewhere...). > > > > I do hope that Peter (Feigenbaum) hasn't ghosted on this conversation, > > because I think that the emergence of free will in adolescence ("coming > of > > age", in most cultures) is related to the issue he raised earlier, the > > issue of whether conscious awareness precedes or follows decision making > > and all of its consequences. In the days of Chomskyan hegemony in > > linguistics, this was thought of in terms of "performance before > > competence", as opposed to "competence before performance".This way of > > posing the problem, however, inevitably introduces an unhelpful dualism. > > Since competence is really only accessible through performance, it is (as > > Laplace remarked to Napoleon a propos the use of God in his cosmology) a > > hypothesis of which we have no need. All we really need is the notion of > > meaning potential, something that is constantly being made meaning actual > > and thus activating new potential in turn. Awareness isn't something > > separate from this cycle; it forms part of it at every point. This is not > > just Halliday; it's the way that Vygotsky introduces "deliberate > > semantics" in Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech, and thus forms > another > > important NEW point that is lost when we focus only on what is OLD in > > Vygotsky. > > > > Why does Vygotsky distinguish between "phasic" and "semantic" aspects of > > speech? It turns out that the "phasal" properties of language are ALL the > > syntagmatic ones--not just syntax, but also the stringing together of > > morpho-phonemes into lexeme-syllables, of lexeme-syllables into > > clause-utterances, and even of clause-utterances into paragraphs. It is > all > > the stuff that "follows on" in language, including transitivity and > > ergativity. But the way you "follow on" is by choosing stuff that "fits > > in". You get to choose (for example, you get to choose whether you will > say > > "Let's play a game", as adults do, or just "Let's play" as little > children > > do, and if you choose the "game", you can choose to name the game or > leave > > it to others. Both choosing and not choosing are choices, and such > choices > > happen at every level: when we spell a word, when we make a sentence, > when > > we write a posting for xmca. It's free will, because at every point there > > is a recognition of necessity. > > > > David Kellogg > > Sangmyung University > > > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > > child?s first interrogatives > > > > > > Free e-print available at: > > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 12:54 AM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: > > > >> David, > >> I was thinking about ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the > >> young thanks to your post and the movie that my wife and I watched last > >> night (at home): Lady Bird. Here?s a review of the movie: > >> > >> http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida- > >> project-coming-of-age-movies-oscars-1201936864/ < > http://www.indiewire.com/ > >> 2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida-project-coming-of-age-movies- > >> oscars-1201936864/> > >> > >> I was wondering whether you or others find this triangle (ergativity, > free > >> will and the becomliness of the young) compelling, or even interesting. > >> Lady Bird is about the coming of a girl in her senior year at a Catholic > >> high school in Sacramento, California, coincidentally where I went to > >> college as an undergraduate. The movie resonates with Stand By Me, a > coming > >> of age movie I liked a lot.The difference is that Lady Bird is about an > >> adolescent-to-adult transformation of a someone becoming a woman and > Stand > >> by Me is a boy-to-adolescent transformation of a boy. Another big > >> difference is that adults are majorly present in Lady Bird and > non-existent > >> in Stand By Me. My wife thinks Lady Bird was too long and fell asleep > >> during several scenes. I?m glad I stayed awake, though the movie wasn?t > the > >> roller coaster ride of Get Out. (Which, by the way, is a coming of age > in > >> adulthood.) Anyway, I am very interested in what is called free will and > >> making choices. All three of the movies I cite are about making choices, > >> choices made by characters with agency, but would you call their choices > >> out of free will. Or is it more an ergative process? Becoming, a form > >> and/or a noun logogentically. It is not a subject acting on an object, > as > >> in ?My mother made me do it". In Lady Bird both mother and father are > major > >> parts of the girl?s Social Situation of Development, but she is > certainly > >> making choices that conflict with the wishes of her mother. Yet, at the > end > >> of the movie, you can see her mom had a huge influence on her choices. > Lady > >> Bird was free in the sense of coming to understand these influences AND, > >> arguably, free because she worked through the crises unalienated from > her > >> mother. I think I like this movie most because of how parents are an > >> integral and positive (thought troubled) part of the becomilness of this > >> young Lady Bird, somwhere between a girl and a woman. Perhaps you, or > >> others, can think of other movies about the becomliness of other > girls/boys > >> becoming women/men . Or books. Or whatever. > >> > >> I realize now that your new subject line resonates totally with previous > >> posts on activism out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas: > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas. < > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas> I want to > >> remember her name, just as I remember the name of Amy Biehl, the name > of a > >> highschool in Albuquerque where my son is now teaching. ( > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl >> wiki/Amy_Biehl>). Marjory lived to be old. Amy died young in South > Africa > >> in the fight against aparteid. I would live to tell anyone listening how > >> she died. It will make you cry in joy and pain. But that?s for another > >> post, if anyone cares. > >> > >> Herny > >> > >> > >>> On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg > wrote: > >>> > >>> Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates > a > >>> strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in > >>> Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely > >> what > >>> is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the > >>> text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused > on > >>> the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how > >> the > >>> different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other > >>> directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is > >> first > >>> phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. > >>> > >>> Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me > is > >>> the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not > >> entity. > >>> In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky > is > >>> trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in > >>> some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the > Social > >>> Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the > >>> non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural > >> maturation"; > >>> in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is > >> getting > >>> earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and > >> later. > >>> This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the > >>> young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never > >>> quite being. > >>> > >>> Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, > processes > >>> that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the > >>> opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the > >>> product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems > >>> related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as > >>> Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, > >>> from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached > India" > >>> or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based > on > >>> something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in > proportion > >>> to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. > >>> > >>> But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: > >> in > >>> the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is > >> now > >>> based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which > are > >>> iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is > equal > >> to > >>> the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian > solution > >>> addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment > as > >> a > >>> process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not > >> simply > >>> an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of > English > >>> is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did > iin > >>> Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. > >> Adolescence, > >>> like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not > >> an > >>> object being acted upon by a subject. > >>> > >>> David Kellogg > >>> Sangmyung University > >>> > >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* > >>> > >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and > the > >>> child?s first interrogatives > >>> > >>> > >>> Free e-print available at: > >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > >> > >> > > > From hshonerd@gmail.com Fri Apr 6 08:30:58 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 09:30:58 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Becomeliness of the Young In-Reply-To: References: <90D16936-DC27-4442-B0F0-E6CB0B7DA44B@gmail.com> <6163C3C2-D820-4167-AA5B-D8CC5120CD44@gmail.com> Message-ID: David, > "Yes, the distinction between phasal and semantic is Chapter Six of Thinking > and Speech, and it's in the context of foreign language teaching: in the > foreign language, we get the phasal aspects before the semantics, and in > native language learning it's the other way around. This is a much more > precise and useful way of thinking about it than "performance before > competence" (Courtney Cazden) or "competence before performance" (Chomsky),both of which ignore the fact that children speak very small languages." Thanks for where to find the phasal/semantic distinction in Vygotsky. In my work on repair that you cite (thanks again), what I describe is a paradigmatic process of substituting one language form for another, thus moving the conversation along and promoting L2 learning at the same time. Much of the self-repair is other-assisted by a native speaker, either the teacher (in the classroom) or myself (during interviews). I admit to having trouble with the phasal/semantic distinction in regards to L2 learning. It seems to me that adult L2 learners have a huge amount of semantics from their native language, but are short on -phono-lexico-grammatical forms in L2. It is these forms that they are trying to master. Young children are popularly thought to be the quickest L2 learners, but research (Erwin-Tripp, I think) shows that it is adolescents. I quote: ?Children speak very small languages.? Language transfer in L2 learning. For adults, all that language turns out to be heavy baggage. I assume I am missing something important about the phasal/semantic distinction as Vygotsky uses it. I have spent relatively little time on repair in native speakers. But my sense is that it would be insightful in understanding what goes on in speech planning, that is in making choices. With writing, we have more time, if we use it wisely, to make felicitous, ethical choices. Nobody?s perfect. That?s where repair comes in. Nothing mysterious about that. Henry > On Apr 5, 2018, at 7:02 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > > Henry-- > > Yes, the distinction between phasal and semantic is Chapter Six of Thinking > and Speech, and it's in the context of foreign language teaching: in the > foreign language, we get the phasal aspects before the semantics, and in > native language learning it's the other way around. This is a much more > precise and useful way of thinking about it than "performance before > competence" (Courtney Cazden) or "competence before performance" (Chomsky), > both of which ignore the fact that children speak very small languages. > > And that's where we really have to tweak the matrix of phasal (syntagmatic) > and semantic (paradigmatic) a little. Saussure did this by using > "associative" instead of paradigmatic: he thought that associations could > go every which way, and so it didn't make sense to think of a fixed menu of > options the way you really have to in order to arrive at a synoptic > description of what people are doing when they construct a clause. Besides, > associative psychology is a mug's game: as Vygotsky says, it's either > ridiculous or meaningless or both. But it DOES make sense to think of the > semantic paradigm as organized from concrete to abstract, or specific to > general, or sense to signification. And it does make sense to think of the > phasal syntagm as proceding always from given information to new, and from > the speaker's point of view to the necessarily more general one of the > hearer. > > As we ascend the semantic axis towards the abstract, we do find that it > includes more and more information from the context of culture and less and > less from the context of situation, and this does seem to bend the axis > towards the syntagmatic (e.g. when the next idea that "follows on" is > actually an example, or an elaboration, rather than a new idea). Similarly, > as we follow the syntagmatic axis through proof-reading and proof-hearing, > we find that it bends in the direction of the paradigmatic (e.g. when the > discourse leaves the immediate context and seeks to generalize, as we've > been doing on this thread). This means that the two axes will eventually be > meet, as it were, at the antipode of the origin (e.g. number instead of > concrete object). > > Do you know this Handbook of Educational Psych by I. Weiner? Well, Chapter > Seven is a very interesting paper by John-Steiner and Mahn which cites a > mysterious and enigmatic H. Shonerd on classroom meaning making in foreign > language teaching. Shonerd describes self-repair in the foreign language > classroom, and then he cites Wolfgang Klein: "Language learning is making a > raincoat in the rain". It makes more sense in Korean; there is a > traditional kind of rain coat here made of roofing rice stalks tied > together. > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 8:55 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > >> Dude, >> I was going to go for a walk, having done more thinking today than usuall >> because I get literally feverish. But let?s play in a child?s way, without >> exactly naming the game, but implying it with gesture in language. With >> emails so much dependent on timing and sequencing of the posts, the calls >> and responses. This is syntagmatics and forms its own field and vice versa. >> This is our dialog relating our takes on this and that. Pointing subtly >> (ha!), like my Navajo friends, with their lips slightly pointing by >> pouting, at the name of the game, thus telling a story instead. Here?s a >> move, a gesture for you, that Halliday and Langacker can, through us, talk >> to each other, even if neither one of us can talk respectfully (at least >> yet) with Chomsky. I have already been humbled on this chat for my >> presumptiousness in critcizing Chomsky. I confess anyway that I don?t >> entirely understand what you said about Chomsky. If I understood better, >> maybe I could understand how I could talk to him without making a damn fool >> of myself. So, I won?t name the game, but that?s my drash on what it is >> we?re playing. ?drash? in Yiddsh, is a clipping from Herbrew ?midrash?, >> translated broadly as ?exegesis.? All of this gesturing makes me think that >> when we say syntagmatic it is not two dimensional. Not just sequencing >> along a single temporal line, but across zeitgeists. All of these nods to >> linguistics should not mean we are playing at linguistics. That would be >> naming the game. >> >> Finally, or this will never end, I appreciated your whole damned email. >> Got to go for that walk! >> >> Henry >> >>> On Apr 3, 2018, at 4:00 PM, David Kellogg wrote: >>> >>> Thanks, Henry--you read a lot better than I write: I didn't actually >>> mention free will, but of course that IS the highest form of behavior and >>> the Central Neoformation of adolescence! I also much appreciated the >> links >>> to reviews, as I never watch Western movies (not because I can't stay >> awake >>> but because they sometimes trigger a recurring nightmare of my own--I >> guess >>> we have all led interesting lives somewhere...). >>> >>> I do hope that Peter (Feigenbaum) hasn't ghosted on this conversation, >>> because I think that the emergence of free will in adolescence ("coming >> of >>> age", in most cultures) is related to the issue he raised earlier, the >>> issue of whether conscious awareness precedes or follows decision making >>> and all of its consequences. In the days of Chomskyan hegemony in >>> linguistics, this was thought of in terms of "performance before >>> competence", as opposed to "competence before performance".This way of >>> posing the problem, however, inevitably introduces an unhelpful dualism. >>> Since competence is really only accessible through performance, it is (as >>> Laplace remarked to Napoleon a propos the use of God in his cosmology) a >>> hypothesis of which we have no need. All we really need is the notion of >>> meaning potential, something that is constantly being made meaning actual >>> and thus activating new potential in turn. Awareness isn't something >>> separate from this cycle; it forms part of it at every point. This is not >>> just Halliday; it's the way that Vygotsky introduces "deliberate >>> semantics" in Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech, and thus forms >> another >>> important NEW point that is lost when we focus only on what is OLD in >>> Vygotsky. >>> >>> Why does Vygotsky distinguish between "phasic" and "semantic" aspects of >>> speech? It turns out that the "phasal" properties of language are ALL the >>> syntagmatic ones--not just syntax, but also the stringing together of >>> morpho-phonemes into lexeme-syllables, of lexeme-syllables into >>> clause-utterances, and even of clause-utterances into paragraphs. It is >> all >>> the stuff that "follows on" in language, including transitivity and >>> ergativity. But the way you "follow on" is by choosing stuff that "fits >>> in". You get to choose (for example, you get to choose whether you will >> say >>> "Let's play a game", as adults do, or just "Let's play" as little >> children >>> do, and if you choose the "game", you can choose to name the game or >> leave >>> it to others. Both choosing and not choosing are choices, and such >> choices >>> happen at every level: when we spell a word, when we make a sentence, >> when >>> we write a posting for xmca. It's free will, because at every point there >>> is a recognition of necessity. >>> >>> David Kellogg >>> Sangmyung University >>> >>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>> >>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >>> child?s first interrogatives >>> >>> >>> Free e-print available at: >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 12:54 AM, HENRY SHONERD >> wrote: >>> >>>> David, >>>> I was thinking about ergativity, free will and the becomliness of the >>>> young thanks to your post and the movie that my wife and I watched last >>>> night (at home): Lady Bird. Here?s a review of the movie: >>>> >>>> http://www.indiewire.com/2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida- >>>> project-coming-of-age-movies-oscars-1201936864/ < >> http://www.indiewire.com/ >>>> 2018/03/lady-bird-the-florida-project-coming-of-age-movies- >>>> oscars-1201936864/> >>>> >>>> I was wondering whether you or others find this triangle (ergativity, >> free >>>> will and the becomliness of the young) compelling, or even interesting. >>>> Lady Bird is about the coming of a girl in her senior year at a Catholic >>>> high school in Sacramento, California, coincidentally where I went to >>>> college as an undergraduate. The movie resonates with Stand By Me, a >> coming >>>> of age movie I liked a lot.The difference is that Lady Bird is about an >>>> adolescent-to-adult transformation of a someone becoming a woman and >> Stand >>>> by Me is a boy-to-adolescent transformation of a boy. Another big >>>> difference is that adults are majorly present in Lady Bird and >> non-existent >>>> in Stand By Me. My wife thinks Lady Bird was too long and fell asleep >>>> during several scenes. I?m glad I stayed awake, though the movie wasn?t >> the >>>> roller coaster ride of Get Out. (Which, by the way, is a coming of age >> in >>>> adulthood.) Anyway, I am very interested in what is called free will and >>>> making choices. All three of the movies I cite are about making choices, >>>> choices made by characters with agency, but would you call their choices >>>> out of free will. Or is it more an ergative process? Becoming, a form >>>> and/or a noun logogentically. It is not a subject acting on an object, >> as >>>> in ?My mother made me do it". In Lady Bird both mother and father are >> major >>>> parts of the girl?s Social Situation of Development, but she is >> certainly >>>> making choices that conflict with the wishes of her mother. Yet, at the >> end >>>> of the movie, you can see her mom had a huge influence on her choices. >> Lady >>>> Bird was free in the sense of coming to understand these influences AND, >>>> arguably, free because she worked through the crises unalienated from >> her >>>> mother. I think I like this movie most because of how parents are an >>>> integral and positive (thought troubled) part of the becomilness of this >>>> young Lady Bird, somwhere between a girl and a woman. Perhaps you, or >>>> others, can think of other movies about the becomliness of other >> girls/boys >>>> becoming women/men . Or books. Or whatever. >>>> >>>> I realize now that your new subject line resonates totally with previous >>>> posts on activism out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas: >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas. < >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjory_Stoneman_Douglas> I want to >>>> remember her name, just as I remember the name of Amy Biehl, the name >> of a >>>> highschool in Albuquerque where my son is now teaching. ( >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl >>> wiki/Amy_Biehl>). Marjory lived to be old. Amy died young in South >> Africa >>>> in the fight against aparteid. I would live to tell anyone listening how >>>> she died. It will make you cry in joy and pain. But that?s for another >>>> post, if anyone cares. >>>> >>>> Herny >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Apr 2, 2018, at 3:40 PM, David Kellogg >> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Both van der Veer and Zavershneva are textual historians; this creates >> a >>>>> strong bias, in the article recently circulated, towards what is OLD in >>>>> Chapter Seven of Thinking and Speech and makes them overlook precisely >>>> what >>>>> is NEW and those precisely what is most interesting and specific to the >>>>> text. But in my previous rather incoherent comments, I simply focused >> on >>>>> the obvious fact that they left out my own reading of the chapter: how >>>> the >>>>> different planes of feeling, thinking, self-directed speaking and other >>>>> directed speaking fit into the overall argument of the book, which is >>>> first >>>>> phylogenetic, then ontogenetic, and at last logogenetic. >>>>> >>>>> Here's a better example. When I re-read Chapter Seven, what strikes me >> is >>>>> the emphasis on concepts as process not product, as energy and not >>>> entity. >>>>> In the Pedology of the Adolescent, there's something similar: Vygosky >> is >>>>> trying to show how all of the contradictions of the young are linked in >>>>> some way to a "Central Contradiction" which he will later call the >> Social >>>>> Situation of Development. That central contradiction is "the >>>>> non-coincidence of sexual, general organic, and sociocultural >>>> maturation"; >>>>> in other words, the fact that in humans the ability to reproduce is >>>> getting >>>>> earlier and earlier but the ability to produce is getting later and >>>> later. >>>>> This produces a phenomenon we might call the "becomeliness of the >>>>> young"--the fact that the adolescent is always becoming and never >>>>> quite being. >>>>> >>>>> Mike promised us an anecdote on ergativity in Russian--that is, >> processes >>>>> that simply unfold through a medium, like "the door opened", where the >>>>> opening is something that unfolds by means of a door rather than the >>>>> product of an action on an object. In a weird way, this problem seems >>>>> related to me. English and other Standard European Languages (SAEs, as >>>>> Whorf called them) underwent a big transition in the sixteenth century, >>>>> from sentences based on heroic transformative actions ("We reached >> India" >>>>> or "We conquered America" or "We colonized Africa") to sentences based >> on >>>>> something like equations: "The angle of refracted light was in >> proportion >>>>> to the plumpness of the lens," as Newton wrote. >>>>> >>>>> But as Halliday points out, the Newtonian solution is not a stable one: >>>> in >>>>> the typical "to be" sentence on which scientific writing in English is >>>> now >>>>> based, "being" is construed as a process requiring two "be-ers" which >> are >>>>> iin some way equal but not redundant ("The rate of crack growth is >> equal >>>> to >>>>> the pressure exerted on the receptive surface"). This Newtonian >> solution >>>>> addresses but doesn't solve the problem of describing the environment >> as >>>> a >>>>> process unfolding in itself and in that process transforming us, not >>>> simply >>>>> an object to be transformed by us. The ergative transformation of >> English >>>>> is one way to try to solve this problem, it suggests, as Vygotsky did >> iin >>>>> Chapter Seven, a concept based on becoming rather than being. >>>> Adolescence, >>>>> like any other concept, is a process unfolding through a medium and not >>>> an >>>>> object being acted upon by a subject. >>>>> >>>>> David Kellogg >>>>> Sangmyung University >>>>> >>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>>> >>>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and >> the >>>>> child?s first interrogatives >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Free e-print available at: >>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>> >>>> >> >> >> From carrie.lobman@gse.rutgers.edu Fri Apr 6 11:48:21 2018 From: carrie.lobman@gse.rutgers.edu (Carrie Lobman) Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 18:48:21 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Off-Site AERA Session Message-ID: Lois Holzman and I have often shared the work of our colleagues at the All Stars Project, the national youth development program co-founded by Lenora Fulani and the late Fred Newman. The All Stars is being featured this year in a presidential off-site session on Saturday April 14th that I am co-hosting with Dr. Fulani. I hope you will join us and pass the word. Extending and Deepening the Concept of Public Education Saturday April 14 12:30PM-2:30PM Join us for a presidential off-site visit to the national headquarters of All Stars Project, Inc. (ASP), a national, privately funded non-profit organization that sponsors outside of school youth development programs in six U.S. cities and serves 53,000 young people and their families, primarily in poor communities of color. For over three decades the All Stars has served as a laboratory for developing cultural approaches to youth and community development in an effort to impact on the damaging effects of entrenched and generational poverty. The ASP builds ?stages??both in and out of the theatre that support participants to play and perform and through those activities, develop and learn. The visit will include a tour and a taste of the performance and workshop spaces contained in the 31,000 square-foot facility and a group conversation led by Carrie Lobman, Ed.D and All Stars co-founder and social activist Lenora Fulani, PhD with staff and youth and adult participants. LOGISTICS: Meet in the lobby of the New York Hilton Midtown at 1335 Sixth Avenue at 11:45am or come directly to the All Stars Project at 543 W 42nd Street at 12:30pm Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching Graduate School of Education Rutgers University www.gse.rutgers.edu www.eastsideinstitute.org www.performingtheworld.org From kplakits@gmail.com Fri Apr 6 15:52:30 2018 From: kplakits@gmail.com (Katerina Plakitsi) Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2018 22:52:30 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Off-Site AERA Session In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Congrats Carie! I miss this event! Please share ... ???? ???, 6 ??? 2018 ???? 23:54 ? ??????? Carrie Lobman < carrie.lobman@gse.rutgers.edu> ??????: > Lois Holzman and I have often shared the work of our colleagues at the All > Stars Project, the national youth development program co-founded by Lenora > Fulani and the late Fred Newman. The All Stars is being featured this year > in a presidential off-site session on Saturday April 14th that I am > co-hosting with Dr. Fulani. I hope you will join us and pass the word. > > > Extending and Deepening the Concept of Public Education > > Saturday April 14 12:30PM-2:30PM > > > > Join us for a presidential off-site visit to the national headquarters of > All Stars Project, Inc. (ASP), a national, privately funded non-profit > organization that sponsors outside of school youth development programs in > six U.S. cities and serves 53,000 young people and their families, > primarily in poor communities of color. For over three decades the All > Stars has served as a laboratory for developing cultural approaches to > youth and community development in an effort to impact on the damaging > effects of entrenched and generational poverty. The ASP builds > ?stages??both in and out of the theatre that support participants to play > and perform and through those activities, develop and learn. The visit will > include a tour and a taste of the performance and workshop spaces contained > in the 31,000 square-foot facility and a group conversation led by Carrie > Lobman, Ed.D and All Stars co-founder and social activist Lenora Fulani, > PhD with staff and youth and adult participants. > > > > LOGISTICS: Meet in the lobby of the New York Hilton Midtown at 1335 Sixth > Avenue > at 11:45am or come directly to the All Stars Project at 543 W 42nd Street > at > 12:30pm > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > > Graduate School of Education > > Rutgers University > > www.gse.rutgers.edu > > www.eastsideinstitute.org > > www.performingtheworld.org > > > -- Katerina Plakitsi *ISCAR President* *Professor of Science Education* *Head of the Dept. of E**arly Childhood Education* *School of Education * *University of Ioannina, Greece* *tel. +302651005771* *fax. +302651005842* *mobile.phone +306972898463* *Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3* https://www.iscar.org/ http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isZAbefnRmo&t=7s From kplakits@gmail.com Fri Apr 6 15:52:30 2018 From: kplakits@gmail.com (Katerina Plakitsi) Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2018 22:52:30 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Off-Site AERA Session In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Congrats Carie! I miss this event! Please share ... ???? ???, 6 ??? 2018 ???? 23:54 ? ??????? Carrie Lobman < carrie.lobman@gse.rutgers.edu> ??????: > Lois Holzman and I have often shared the work of our colleagues at the All > Stars Project, the national youth development program co-founded by Lenora > Fulani and the late Fred Newman. The All Stars is being featured this year > in a presidential off-site session on Saturday April 14th that I am > co-hosting with Dr. Fulani. I hope you will join us and pass the word. > > > Extending and Deepening the Concept of Public Education > > Saturday April 14 12:30PM-2:30PM > > > > Join us for a presidential off-site visit to the national headquarters of > All Stars Project, Inc. (ASP), a national, privately funded non-profit > organization that sponsors outside of school youth development programs in > six U.S. cities and serves 53,000 young people and their families, > primarily in poor communities of color. For over three decades the All > Stars has served as a laboratory for developing cultural approaches to > youth and community development in an effort to impact on the damaging > effects of entrenched and generational poverty. The ASP builds > ?stages??both in and out of the theatre that support participants to play > and perform and through those activities, develop and learn. The visit will > include a tour and a taste of the performance and workshop spaces contained > in the 31,000 square-foot facility and a group conversation led by Carrie > Lobman, Ed.D and All Stars co-founder and social activist Lenora Fulani, > PhD with staff and youth and adult participants. > > > > LOGISTICS: Meet in the lobby of the New York Hilton Midtown at 1335 Sixth > Avenue > at 11:45am or come directly to the All Stars Project at 543 W 42nd Street > at > 12:30pm > > > > Carrie Lobman, Ed.D. > > Chair, Department of Learning and Teaching > > Graduate School of Education > > Rutgers University > > www.gse.rutgers.edu > > www.eastsideinstitute.org > > www.performingtheworld.org > > > -- Katerina Plakitsi *ISCAR President* *Professor of Science Education* *Head of the Dept. of E**arly Childhood Education* *School of Education * *University of Ioannina, Greece* *tel. +302651005771* *fax. +302651005842* *mobile.phone +306972898463* *Skype name: katerina.plakitsi3* https://www.iscar.org/ http://users.uoi.gr/kplakits www.epoque-project.eu http://bdfprojects.wixsite.com/mindset http://www.lib.uoi.gr/serp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isZAbefnRmo&t=7s From smago@uga.edu Sat Apr 7 12:41:25 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 19:41:25 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] sense and emotion Message-ID: I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found it interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical work to argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas borrowed heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on human development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks from appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him was shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something that occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote then. What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply emotional foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that process might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in a class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the tongue is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more alliterative tongue. Very nice.] In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to follow up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find interesting. Am I on the right trail? http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., unarticulated inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of the meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in greater detail. Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with a sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) called inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and stream-of-consciousness properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to what Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a reader's evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt describes this experience as a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated by what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning will be derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. (pp. 57-58) Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm cloud of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it cannot be empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of inner speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young children, which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech (or another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the zone of meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in represented form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, referring to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation of sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in various contexts. (p. 275) From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Apr 7 15:49:05 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 15:49:05 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Peter- I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top of the always-growing stack of "must read nows." Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with respect to Dewey is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this context should be translated as language. Another casualty of collective editing of the translator's work. mike editing. On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found it > interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical work to > argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas borrowed > heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on human > development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks from > appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him was > shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. > > I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something that > occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. > Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote then. > What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply emotional > foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect > can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that process > might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the > material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to > articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in a > class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the tongue > is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I > typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more alliterative > tongue. Very nice.] > > In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to follow up > with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find interesting. > Am I on the right trail? > > http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., unarticulated > inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning > (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). > Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of the > meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in > greater detail. > Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with a > sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) called > inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and stream-of-consciousness > properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to what > Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a reader's > evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt > describes this experience as > > a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated by > what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning will be > derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or > surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, > situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. > (pp. 57-58) > > Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm cloud > of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) > metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it cannot be > empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of inner > speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young children, > which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech (or > another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the zone of > meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls > znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in represented > form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, referring > to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation of > sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise > in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, > and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability" > (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different > contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a > comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all > the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in > various contexts. (p. 275) > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Apr 7 16:32:01 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 16:32:01 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi again, Peter-- Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was great to see the identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking them down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years --Russian and non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, like the earlier work with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to the shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the chapter under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the moment. When it is recoverable, it seems worth putting together with your comments for discussion (assuming that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook for organizing and the perils/virtues of activism). mike On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > Peter- > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top of > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with respect > to Dewey > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this > context should be translated as language. Another casualty of collective > editing of the translator's work. > > mike > editing. > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found it >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical work to >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas borrowed >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on human >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks from >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him was >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. >> >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something that >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this >> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote then. >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply emotional >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect >> can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that process >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the >> material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to >> articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). >> >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in a >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the tongue >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I >> typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more alliterative >> tongue. Very nice.] >> >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to follow >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? >> >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., unarticulated >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning >> (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of the >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in >> greater detail. >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with a >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) called >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and stream-of-consciousness >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to what >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a reader's >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt >> describes this experience as >> >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated by >> what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning will be >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or >> surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, >> situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. >> (pp. 57-58) >> >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm cloud >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) >> metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it cannot be >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of inner >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young children, >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech (or >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the zone of >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in represented >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, referring >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation of >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that arise >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability" >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: >> >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a >> comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in >> various contexts. (p. 275) >> >> > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sat Apr 7 16:58:52 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 08:58:52 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, David's comments consisted of two parts. The first part was pretty incoherent--I just objected that they hadn't read the chapter the way I did, with an emphasis on what Halliday calls "logogenesis" as opposed to phylogenesis and ontogenesis. After some reflection, I wrote something a little better, in which I argued that the distinction between "phasal" and "semantic" was key to the chapter. When I think back at what I wrote, though, the first part is really reproaching them for not reading Halliday and the second part for not reading Saussure. Obviously, the second part is a little fairer than the first...but in a hundred years I daresay things will be the other way around: Saussure will only be of historical interest, but Halliday himself will be part of our own living history. I always wondered about that, Mike. In the preface to Mind in Society, it says the first four chapters are from Tool and Sign, but the fourth chapter is clearly from the end of Chapter Two of HDHMF. Vygotsky says: ???, ?. ????, ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ???????????, ????????? ???? ???????????????? ?????? ? ?????? ????????, ?????????? ???? ??? ?????? ??????, ???????? ??????????? ????, ?????? ???????????, ?? ????. So it's not about the "tongue" at all--it's about "language" and then about "speech". And what's the difference? Here I think Peter's got a point. The difference between "znachenie" and "smysl" is semantic. But semantics, according to Halliday, has a way of "rising to the concrete"--that is, all the patterns, from lexicogrammar to phonology to phonetics, can be semantically motivated one way or another. So for example at the level of lexicogrammar, there are some words that are closer to "smysl", because they are so embedded in the context of situation (these are the ones favored in infant speech and early childhood, the "this" and the "that" and the "there" and "here" and "it" and "the" and so on, whose reference is immediate and constantly changing as a result). But so many of these words, iin Englsh, begin with voiced interdental "th". Why? Well, it's not just Tibetans and native Americans who point with their lips, Henry! There is a fair amount of pointing with the tongue going on here. But less trivially, I think you'll find that sense is linked to VOWELS (as well as to intonation and stress) whle signification is carried disproportionately in consonants. Because there is meaning being made at every level, we can see, at every level, Vygotsky's distinction between sense and signification (which is really identical to Voloshinov's between "theme" and "meaning"). David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote: > Hi again, Peter-- > > Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was great to > see the > identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking them > down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years --Russian and > non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, like the earlier work > with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to the > shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* > > I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the chapter > under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the moment. When it is > recoverable, > it seems worth putting together with your comments for discussion (assuming > that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook for > organizing > and the perils/virtues of activism). > > mike > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > Peter- > > > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top > of > > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with > respect > > to Dewey > > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this > > context should be translated as language. Another casualty of collective > > editing of the translator's work. > > > > mike > > editing. > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky > wrote: > > > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found it > >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > work to > >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas borrowed > >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on > human > >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks > from > >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him was > >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. > >> > >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > that > >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. > >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > >> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote > then. > >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > emotional > >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect > >> can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that process > >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the > >> material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to > >> articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > >> > >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in a > >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > tongue > >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I > >> typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > alliterative > >> tongue. Very nice.] > >> > >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to follow > >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? > >> > >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., unarticulated > >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning > >> (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). > >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > the > >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in > >> greater detail. > >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with a > >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) called > >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > stream-of-consciousness > >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to what > >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a reader's > >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt > >> describes this experience as > >> > >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated by > >> what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning will > be > >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or > >> surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, > >> situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. > >> (pp. 57-58) > >> > >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm cloud > >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) > >> metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it > cannot be > >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of inner > >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young > children, > >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech (or > >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the > zone of > >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls > >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in > represented > >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > referring > >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation of > >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that > arise > >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, > fluid, > >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their > stability" > >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > >> > >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different > >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a > >> comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all > >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in > >> various contexts. (p. 275) > >> > >> > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Sat Apr 7 17:02:48 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 10:02:48 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky Message-ID: I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good location for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically) to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a hands on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows from this that effective communication between different cultures must be contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) is now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. Some groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi and low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet where internet connectivity is limited). Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual sweet spot in the middle of the teething rings. *Reference*: Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007) Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) From andyb@marxists.org Sat Apr 7 17:32:45 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 10:32:45 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good location > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically) > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a hands > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge is > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed attention > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows from > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) is > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. Some > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi and > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet > where internet connectivity is limited). > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual sweet > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > *Reference*: > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > (2007) > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) From billkerr@gmail.com Sat Apr 7 17:47:40 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 10:47:40 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the Djarragun school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that is Life After Noel here https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As an evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a life long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who have missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start another thread. This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or Noel. On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > location > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically) > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a > hands > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge > is > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed attention > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows > from > > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) > is > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. > Some > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi > and > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > sweet > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > *Reference*: > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > > (2007) > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Apr 7 18:05:18 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2018 18:05:18 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: Cool note, Bill. Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always interested in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change means that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution of the key texts help a lot, or links. Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look forward to the followups. Good Sunday morning to you. mike On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the Djarragun > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that is > Life After Noel here > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As an > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a life > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who have > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > another thread. > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or Noel. > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > get > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > > location > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > (pragmatically) > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a > > hands > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > organised > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > knowledge > > is > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > attention > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > mongrel > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > created > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows > > from > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > bits) > > is > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective > way > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. > > Some > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > understood > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi > > and > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > (sneakernet > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > Vygotsky?. > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > > sweet > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > > > (2007) > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines > (2007) > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > From glassman.13@osu.edu Sun Apr 8 05:44:46 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 12:44:46 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B0456D@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Hi Bill, Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion. Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like Virtual Reality or Augmentative Reality. Obviously that's not what you mean as you rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't have access to the necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of connectivity and support is just not available). Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications. Which ones? I know there are good ones out there. The tablet research has not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great deal of resources. It is also interesting that you use Android. The other day one of my students pointed out to me that many universities in the US are developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much of the rest of the world is focusing on Android technology. This might create ugly chasms and isolate the US in terms of how we use digital technology. I don't know if anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a Town Hall the first part of which he talked about education. Not because it was good but because it was kind of scary. Apple for instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free training. From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding is in ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US. It I believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure. Michael -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Bill Kerr Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good location for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically) to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a hands on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows from this that effective communication between different cultures must be contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) is now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. Some groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi and low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet where internet connectivity is limited). Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual sweet spot in the middle of the teething rings. *Reference*: Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2007) Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) From smago@uga.edu Sun Apr 8 09:35:47 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 16:35:47 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here's how it appears in MiS, in two places. First as the tool of thought, then as tool of tools. No more tongues in the volume. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 6:49 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Cc: VEER@FSW.leidenuniv.nl Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion Peter- I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top of the always-growing stack of "must read nows." Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with respect to Dewey is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this context should be translated as language. Another casualty of collective editing of the translator's work. mike editing. On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found > it interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > work to argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas > borrowed heavily from other sources than an original culminating > statement on human development, an issue obscured by editors who > removed quotation marks from appropriated material. The ways in which > Vygotsky as we now know him was shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. > > I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > that occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. > Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote then. > What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > emotional foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition > and affect can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how > that process might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, > produces the material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their > way to articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in > a class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > tongue is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part > because I typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > alliterative tongue. Very nice.] > > In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to > follow up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find interesting. > Am I on the right trail? > > http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., > unarticulated inner speech), while the term znachenie has been > translated as meaning (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). > Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > the meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of > meaning in greater detail. > Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with > a sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) > called inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > stream-of-consciousness properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. > Smysl corresponds to what Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial > zone of meaning in a reader's evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers > to as imagination. Rosenblatt describes this experience as > > a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated > by what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning > will be derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, > echoes, resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, > contrasts, or surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of > emotion, idea, situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. > (pp. 57-58) > > Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm > cloud of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's > (1987) metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that > it cannot be empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's > formulation of inner speech came from his observations of egocentric > speech in young children, which he theorized became internalized as > inner speech. Once speech (or another tool) is articulated and thus > observable, it appears in the zone of meaning that is the shower of > words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls znachenie. Znachenie, then, > is the zone of meaning available in represented form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > referring to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the > translation of sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the > psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of > the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their stability" > (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In > different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, > [articulation] is a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that > remains constant with all the exchanges of the word's sense that are > associated with its use in various contexts. (p. 275) > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: tongue.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 88776 bytes Desc: tongue.JPG Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180408/b7d31f70/attachment-0002.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: tongue1.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 111115 bytes Desc: tongue1.JPG Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180408/b7d31f70/attachment-0003.jpe From billkerr@gmail.com Sun Apr 8 13:30:04 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 06:30:04 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: hi Mike Cole, I'm interested in your evaluation of your experience of "having failed" in this area if by that you mean introducing digital tech to the disadvantaged. I was involved in the One Laptop per Child project (mainly evaluating the software not intensive field tests) and have thought about why it failed or appeared to fail. Superficially and briefly, the hardware was wonderful, the software ok sort of. But there was little or no contextual interaction with the intended recipients in the Third world (cultural fail) and the educational philosophy was Seymour Papert's constructionism (contextual epistemological fail even though I believe it can work with highly skilled teachers). "Runaway object" is a nice phrase about the sweet spot. But I'm not sure about how important it is conceptually, ie. the underlying reasons why it runs away? The references I have provided include dense books by Wolff Michael Roth (Mathematics of Mathematics): Still reading but very impressed. Up until now I've had an eclectic / pragmatic approach to learning theory - take a bit from Papert's constructionism, a bit from Willingham's cognitivism, a bit from Dennett's behaviourism. Michael attempts to put an end to all that and I'm partly persuaded but not yet fully. Can't be summarised briefly so I think will require a separate thread if and when I get my act together. and Martin Nakata: first Torres Strait Islander to obtain a PhD (now at James Cook Uni Townsville) through an incredible analysis developing a profound theory of the Cultural Interface. Once again hard to summarise briefly. But since the Cultural Interface becomes a tower of many Babels then for me it highlights again the importance of paying a lot of attention to context. Kwame Appiah is an easier read and it was his quote from Salman Rushdie that I extracted the concept of mongrel cultures I can provide an elaboration of my own fairly soon of the overall approach (digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky) but not sure how to summarise the above authors briefly. Reality check: Schools / education dominated by mechanical epistemologies, bland cultures and technocentric thinking in the IT department creating overall too many hurdles to jump. Nevertheless, I am aware of some promising exemplars but most / all of them don't encompass the sweet spot implied by my 3 teething rings. So does my analysis have the potential to do it better or does on the ground partly inspired pragmatism prevail? On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > Cool note, Bill. > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always interested > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change means > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look forward > to the followups. > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > mike > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the Djarragun > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that is > > Life After Noel here > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As an > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a > life > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who > have > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > > another thread. > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or Noel. > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > > get > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > Instruction > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > > > location > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > (pragmatically) > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a > > > hands > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > organised > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > knowledge > > > is > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > attention > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what > is > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > constructivist. > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > mongrel > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > > created > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows > > > from > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > > bits) > > > is > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective > > way > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. > > > Some > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > understood > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry > Pi > > > and > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > (sneakernet > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > Vygotsky?. > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > > > sweet > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > Strangers > > > > (2007) > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines > > (2007) > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with > the > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Sun Apr 8 14:13:12 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 07:13:12 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B0456D@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> References: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B0456D@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Message-ID: hi Michael Glassman, I took my eye off the IT ball for a few years doing other things, getting back to it now. What I'm faced with really is too many balls to juggle on my own and so am looking around to recruit team members. By digital immersion I mean that the poor need their own hardware, you don't learn computing by visiting a lab twice a week. In practice this seems to have evolved into a situation where the computer they carry in their pocket (mobile phone) is forbidden in school and vanilla applications tediously rolled out (MS Office etc.). Many aboriginal Australians in central Australia don't have computers at home and their phone is shared. Then groups setup to bridge the digital divide will bring ipads to them, do some training and then take them away. I see this as falling well short of what should be done. >From my limited knowledge Apple has a big influence in Australia too particularly through ipads. Quite a bit of my inspiration re open source and cheap hardware comes from American exemplars. I mentioned Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ which is an American based group. So far their main work has been to combine the cheap hardware (raspberry pi, tablets etc.) with the Salman Khan Academy maths programs. I need to look more into what they are doing. Elliot Soloway https://www.imlc.io/ (intergalactic mobile) has developed a suite of collaboration software to be run on device agnostic browser based BYOD. Scroll to the bottom of his FAQ page to read his position papers https://www.imlc.io/faq Mark Guzdial has been talking up teaching computer science using cheap hardware approach on his blog for some time, eg. https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/using-tablets-to-broaden-access-to-computing-education-elliot-soloway-and-truly-making-cs-for-all/ Have I answered your questions? On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > Hi Bill, > > Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion. > Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like Virtual > Reality or Augmentative Reality. Obviously that's not what you mean as you > rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't have access to the > necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of connectivity and > support is just not available). > > Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications. > Which ones? I know there are good ones out there. The tablet research has > not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great deal of > resources. It is also interesting that you use Android. The other day one > of my students pointed out to me that many universities in the US are > developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much of the rest of the > world is focusing on Android technology. This might create ugly chasms and > isolate the US in terms of how we use digital technology. I don't know if > anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a Town Hall the first part of which he > talked about education. Not because it was good but because it was kind of > scary. Apple for instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free > training. From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding > is in ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US. It I > believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure. > > Michael > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Bill Kerr > Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good location > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically) > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a hands > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge > is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating > what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows from > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) is > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. Some > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi and > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet > where internet connectivity is limited). > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual sweet > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > *Reference*: > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > (2007) > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin. > Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, > Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, > Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > From glassman.13@osu.edu Sun Apr 8 15:29:28 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 22:29:28 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B0456D@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Message-ID: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B04681@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Thanks Bill, So would I be right to say for you immersion is generally stable mobile technology? So now I'm trying to get a handle on what you are trying to do. It seems to me every 'digital' innovation in education needs to answer a fundamental question, Are you looking to use digital technologies to increase learning in a quantitative way or are you looking to use ideas on human learning to transform how and even why we educate in a qualitative way through the use of digital tools. The first suggests emphasis on development of applications that address traditional learning outcomes. Personally I think there is often an almost messianic quality to this. All we have to do is develop the right app. While I am impressed for instance by the organization you cited Learning Equality they seem to fall into this quality, and the little I know of Elliot Solloway (which isn't much and I may be wrong) he takes the same approach. In the latter you start with a general framework for learning, what do you want to get to, what are the possibilities. There has been a tug in this direction since the Papert ideas you mention in the other message to Mike, but it is a difficult and frustrating project. You start with the ideas on how humans learn and then you move forward from there developing a curricula that takes advantages of the digital possibilities and then you work on platforms. I think as you suggest the process needs to be flexible taking into account cultural, local and even teacher belief system. I am figuring this is where you want to go with mongrel Vygotskianism (I have to admit I never heard that before). There are other possibilities like Pariticpatory Action Research which might have better results that Westernized ethnomethodology (might not). So I guess my question is how are you looking to pull your three 'teething rings' together. Michael -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Bill Kerr Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2018 5:13 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky hi Michael Glassman, I took my eye off the IT ball for a few years doing other things, getting back to it now. What I'm faced with really is too many balls to juggle on my own and so am looking around to recruit team members. By digital immersion I mean that the poor need their own hardware, you don't learn computing by visiting a lab twice a week. In practice this seems to have evolved into a situation where the computer they carry in their pocket (mobile phone) is forbidden in school and vanilla applications tediously rolled out (MS Office etc.). Many aboriginal Australians in central Australia don't have computers at home and their phone is shared. Then groups setup to bridge the digital divide will bring ipads to them, do some training and then take them away. I see this as falling well short of what should be done. >From my limited knowledge Apple has a big influence in Australia too particularly through ipads. Quite a bit of my inspiration re open source and cheap hardware comes from American exemplars. I mentioned Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ which is an American based group. So far their main work has been to combine the cheap hardware (raspberry pi, tablets etc.) with the Salman Khan Academy maths programs. I need to look more into what they are doing. Elliot Soloway https://www.imlc.io/ (intergalactic mobile) has developed a suite of collaboration software to be run on device agnostic browser based BYOD. Scroll to the bottom of his FAQ page to read his position papers https://www.imlc.io/faq Mark Guzdial has been talking up teaching computer science using cheap hardware approach on his blog for some time, eg. https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/using-tablets-to-broaden-access-to-computing-education-elliot-soloway-and-truly-making-cs-for-all/ Have I answered your questions? On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > Hi Bill, > > Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion. > Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like > Virtual Reality or Augmentative Reality. Obviously that's not what > you mean as you rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't > have access to the necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of > connectivity and support is just not available). > > Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications. > Which ones? I know there are good ones out there. The tablet research > has not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great > deal of resources. It is also interesting that you use Android. The > other day one of my students pointed out to me that many universities > in the US are developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much > of the rest of the world is focusing on Android technology. This might > create ugly chasms and isolate the US in terms of how we use digital > technology. I don't know if anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a > Town Hall the first part of which he talked about education. Not > because it was good but because it was kind of scary. Apple for > instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free training. > From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding is in > ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US. It I believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure. > > Michael > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Bill Kerr > Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > get to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > Instruction approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs > as a good location for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > (pragmatically) to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This > turned into a hands on exploration of disparate fields which for > convenience can be organised under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > and evaluating what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view > is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist. > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > mongrel (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex > threads created by the intermingling of the traditional with the > colonial. It follows from this that effective communication between > different cultures must be contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > bits) is now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only > effective way to master digital technology is through full immersion > in the medium. Some groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third > World have understood this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable > hardware (Raspberry Pi and low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) > and infrastructure (sneakernet where internet connectivity is limited). > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > sweet spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > *Reference*: > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > (2007) > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin. > Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, > Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, > Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > From billkerr@gmail.com Sun Apr 8 16:40:34 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 09:40:34 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B04681@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> References: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B0456D@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B04681@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Message-ID: hi Michael Glassman, Ellliot Soloway's emphasis is using computers to enhance collaborative learning. I'd see that as qualitative change. Learning Equality has so far used mainly the Salman Khan Academy maths so I'd see that as quantitative, tapping into third world aspirations to duplicate what happens in western education (quite legitimate aspirations IMO, part of the mongrelised culture) Messianic attitude about the marriage of computing with education: I agree that this can be a problem. I think Seymour did some epistemological overreach (that logo could by the vehicle of a quiet revolution overthrowing traditional school) and it happens all the time. On the other hand I believe it is true that the computer tool can sometimes transform learning qualitatively but you do need a teacher there who understands what is happening. A computer has never taught a child how to read (pointed out by Alan Kay at the start of the OLPC project) Participatory Action Research: Not familar with that particular acronym, correct me if I am wrong, it sounds like old wisdom in a new package. The contextual emphasis is about doing a negotiation about what motivates the participants and that can vary enormously. Disclaimer: I've taught teenage kids from Aurukun, Doomadgee etc remote communities whose initial interest was confined to using the computer to visit their communities (they were boarders), find and print pictures. They had difficulty navigating a keyboard, eg. had to be taught to press Shift to type a capital etc. So take the example below with a grain of salt. Initially a lot of time will need to be spent with some of these kids just learning the user interface. I have a few exemplars / ideas as follows. The first two use proprietary hardware / software and so would be modified under my model 4.1 http://www.welcometocountry.mobi/ The Welcome to Country iPhone app. delivers a simple Welcome to Country video introduction~ to Australian indigenous culture, including basic cultural protocols that are tribal boundary geo-specific 4.2 https://irca.net.au/article/indigimob-supports-family-history-alice-springs-town-camps Wednesday, February 7, 2018 The family history project provides an inclusive, and culturally and socially meaningful pathway into digital literacy for community members. The Tangentyere inDigiMob Digital Access Worker and Digital Mentors have been supporting community members to undertake genealogy mapping using the Mac genealogy software on iPads and computers. The family history project has been running in five town camps in Alice Springs; Hidden Valley, Larapinta Valley, Trucking Yards, Karnte and Charles Creek. The family trees created with the software are extensive, with the genealogy chart at Hidden Valley including over 300 people, and the printed descendent chart at Trucking yards being longer than the community centre. 4.3 Game production with indigenous relevance https://theconversation.com/video-games-encourage-indigenous-cultural-expression-74138 Elizabeth LaPens?e: ?As an Indigenous game developer and scholar of Indigenous games , I want to see more Indigenous people creating games that are simultaneously engaging and informative. Above all else, I hope to see genuine representations as well as compelling games with design inspired by Indigenous ways of knowing? 4.4 Language learning In trying to learn the Arrernte language I found there were insufficient or hard to find resources on the web for relatively simple issues such as how to pronounce important words. I thought this issue would be solvable with a good tape recorder, web access and some organisation. Why hasn?t it beeen done? 4.5 Language issues (English as a second language, poor communication between teacher and learner due to language issues). Linguists and anthropologists are the pioneers in building great communication between cultures, eg. Bob Dixon, Peter Sutton. Libre Office enables importing of new language dictionaries. 4.6 BBC micro:bit http://microbit.org/ is cheap ($20), you can do a lot with it and the free online software developed by MicroSoft (sic) https://makecode.microbit.org/# is user friendly, induced me to modify my opinion of MS btw. 4.7 MIT app inventor for Android http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/ makes it relatively easy to write a phone app. eg. I did their tutorial comparing speeches from Martin Luther King and Malcom X in less than an hour. That is the first phone app I?ve written and I felt an ownership feeling of taking back my phone once I had it installed. On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 8:29 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > Thanks Bill, > > So would I be right to say for you immersion is generally stable mobile > technology? > > So now I'm trying to get a handle on what you are trying to do. It seems > to me every 'digital' innovation in education needs to answer a fundamental > question, > > Are you looking to use digital technologies to increase learning in a > quantitative way or are you looking to use ideas on human learning to > transform how and even why we educate in a qualitative way through the use > of digital tools. > > The first suggests emphasis on development of applications that address > traditional learning outcomes. Personally I think there is often an almost > messianic quality to this. All we have to do is develop the right app. > While I am impressed for instance by the organization you cited Learning > Equality they seem to fall into this quality, and the little I know of > Elliot Solloway (which isn't much and I may be wrong) he takes the same > approach. > > In the latter you start with a general framework for learning, what do you > want to get to, what are the possibilities. There has been a tug in this > direction since the Papert ideas you mention in the other message to Mike, > but it is a difficult and frustrating project. You start with the ideas on > how humans learn and then you move forward from there developing a > curricula that takes advantages of the digital possibilities and then you > work on platforms. I think as you suggest the process needs to be flexible > taking into account cultural, local and even teacher belief system. I am > figuring this is where you want to go with mongrel Vygotskianism (I have to > admit I never heard that before). There are other possibilities like > Pariticpatory Action Research which might have better results that > Westernized ethnomethodology (might not). > > So I guess my question is how are you looking to pull your three 'teething > rings' together. > > Michael > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Bill Kerr > Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2018 5:13 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky > > hi Michael Glassman, > > I took my eye off the IT ball for a few years doing other things, getting > back to it now. What I'm faced with really is too many balls to juggle on > my own and so am looking around to recruit team members. > > By digital immersion I mean that the poor need their own hardware, you > don't learn computing by visiting a lab twice a week. In practice this > seems to have evolved into a situation where the computer they carry in > their pocket (mobile phone) is forbidden in school and vanilla applications > tediously rolled out (MS Office etc.). Many aboriginal Australians in > central Australia don't have computers at home and their phone is shared. > Then groups setup to bridge the digital divide will bring ipads to them, > do some training and then take them away. I see this as falling well short > of what should be done. > > >From my limited knowledge Apple has a big influence in Australia too > particularly through ipads. Quite a bit of my inspiration re open source > and cheap hardware comes from American exemplars. > > I mentioned Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ which is an > American based group. So far their main work has been to combine the cheap > hardware (raspberry pi, tablets etc.) with the Salman Khan Academy maths > programs. I need to look more into what they are doing. > > Elliot Soloway https://www.imlc.io/ (intergalactic mobile) has developed > a suite of collaboration software to be run on device agnostic browser > based BYOD. Scroll to the bottom of his FAQ page to read his position > papers https://www.imlc.io/faq > > Mark Guzdial has been talking up teaching computer science using cheap > hardware approach on his blog for some time, eg. > https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/using-tablets- > to-broaden-access-to-computing-education-elliot- > soloway-and-truly-making-cs-for-all/ > > Have I answered your questions? > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > > Hi Bill, > > > > Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion. > > Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like > > Virtual Reality or Augmentative Reality. Obviously that's not what > > you mean as you rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't > > have access to the necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of > > connectivity and support is just not available). > > > > Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications. > > Which ones? I know there are good ones out there. The tablet research > > has not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great > > deal of resources. It is also interesting that you use Android. The > > other day one of my students pointed out to me that many universities > > in the US are developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much > > of the rest of the world is focusing on Android technology. This might > > create ugly chasms and isolate the US in terms of how we use digital > > technology. I don't know if anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a > > Town Hall the first part of which he talked about education. Not > > because it was good but because it was kind of scary. Apple for > > instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free training. > > From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding is in > > ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US. It I > believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure. > > > > Michael > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > On Behalf Of Bill Kerr > > Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > > get to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > > Instruction approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs > > as a good location for further action research into Australian > indigenous issues. > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > (pragmatically) to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This > > turned into a hands on exploration of disparate fields which for > > convenience can be organised under three sub-headings which can in turn > be melded together: > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > > and evaluating what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view > > is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist > or constructivist. > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > mongrel (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex > > threads created by the intermingling of the traditional with the > > colonial. It follows from this that effective communication between > > different cultures must be contextual based on paying detailed attention > to the now. > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > > bits) is now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only > > effective way to master digital technology is through full immersion > > in the medium. Some groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third > > World have understood this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable > > hardware (Raspberry Pi and low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) > > and infrastructure (sneakernet where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky?. > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > > sweet spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > *Reference*: > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers > > (2007) > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin. > > Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, > > Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, > > Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Apr 8 17:38:05 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2018 17:38:05 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: Hi Bill -- I am mindful that i have some responses owed in the conversation about Vygotsky's chapter, and am struggling to find time there is so much to discuss). Michael Roth is a frequent contributor to xmca. And the Spinoza-Vygotsky relationship is hoth these days. Seems likely has has an article that would give people quick access. And, the literature on the implementations of the one-lap top experiment is easily accessible with a google search. The Appiah looks really interesting.... So there is plentyh of overlap of interest there. I come from an earlier generation where there was a different mashup of Vygotsky and cultural context. The big deal back then was "The New Mathematics." And later, the potential of using a successful non-school-based, indigenous literacy as a tool of self development (the potential was there in principle, but a total non-starter for many of the reasons that led to the Liberian civil war). After that, it was the potential of 64k memory pc's and store-and-forward email. A quicky background there can be found by skimming at lchcautobio.ucsd.edu , the materials in what is called chapters 1, 7, and 10/11. We hit sweet spots, where really great intellectual activity was created ... on a small scale. Come to think of it, the publication of our ragamuffin volume of Vygotsky's writings hit another. If there is further discussion, we can assume knowledge of Seymor's work and a second hand knowledge of programs like Scratch. I have not followed the curricular programs that you mention, but can figure out what they are about from your interchange with Michael. Others on the list will know more. I am not a weathered skeptic about technological solutions to social problems. But the question of whether any proposed new form of activity can act as a catapult that will render Australian ( of any other marginalized group) into a situation of full equality is always an interesting one. To be continued. Hopefully others can provide more up to date feedback that will be of use to you. mike > I'm interested in your evaluation of your experience of "having failed" in > this area if by that you mean introducing digital tech to the > disadvantaged. I was involved in the One Laptop per Child project (mainly > evaluating the software not intensive field tests) and have thought about > why it failed or appeared to fail. Superficially and briefly, the hardware > was wonderful, the software ok sort of. But there was little or no > contextual interaction with the intended recipients in the Third world > (cultural fail) and the educational philosophy was Seymour Papert's > constructionism (contextual epistemological fail even though I believe it > can work with highly skilled teachers). > > "Runaway object" is a nice phrase about the sweet spot. But I'm not sure > about how important it is conceptually, ie. the underlying reasons why it > runs away? > > The references I have provided include dense books by > Wolff Michael Roth (Mathematics of Mathematics): Still reading but very > impressed. Up until now I've had an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > learning theory - take a bit from Papert's constructionism, a bit from > Willingham's cognitivism, a bit from Dennett's behaviourism. Michael > attempts to put an end to all that and I'm partly persuaded but not yet > fully. Can't be summarised briefly so I think will require a separate > thread if and when I get my act together. > > and Martin Nakata: first Torres Strait Islander to obtain a PhD (now at > James Cook Uni Townsville) through an incredible analysis developing a > profound theory of the Cultural Interface. Once again hard to summarise > briefly. But since the Cultural Interface becomes a tower of many Babels > then for me it highlights again the importance of paying a lot of attention > to context. > > Kwame Appiah is an easier read and it was his quote from Salman Rushdie > that I extracted the concept of mongrel cultures > > I can provide an elaboration of my own fairly soon of the overall approach > (digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky) but not sure how to summarise the > above authors briefly. > > Reality check: Schools / education dominated by mechanical epistemologies, > bland cultures and technocentric thinking in the IT department creating > overall too many hurdles to jump. Nevertheless, I am aware of some > promising exemplars but most / all of them don't encompass the sweet spot > implied by my 3 teething rings. So does my analysis have the potential to > do it better or does on the ground partly inspired pragmatism prevail? > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Cool note, Bill. > > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always interested > > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change means > > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." > > > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution > > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look forward > > to the followups. > > > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > > > mike > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the > Djarragun > > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that > is > > > Life After Noel here > > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As > an > > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a > > life > > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who > > have > > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > > > another thread. > > > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or > Noel. > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me > to > > > get > > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > > Instruction > > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > > > > location > > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > > (pragmatically) > > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into > a > > > > hands > > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > > organised > > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > > knowledge > > > > is > > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > > attention > > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating > what > > is > > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > > constructivist. > > > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > > mongrel > > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > > > created > > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It > follows > > > > from > > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must > be > > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > > > bits) > > > > is > > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only > effective > > > way > > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the > medium. > > > > Some > > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > > understood > > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry > > Pi > > > > and > > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > > (sneakernet > > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > > Vygotsky?. > > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the > contextual > > > > sweet > > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > > Strangers > > > > > (2007) > > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines > > > (2007) > > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with > > the > > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Apr 9 00:45:52 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 16:45:52 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You know, in a funny, weird way, I think the problem of who wrote what in Chapter Seven is related. Take, for example, that great quote from Dostoevsky's diary that appears verbatim, more or less, in Voloshinov. Did Vygotsky take it from Voloshinov, or did he take it from Dostoevsky? I used to think this was terribly important (and I used to think it was terribly important that who said what when in Mind in Society was terribly important). What made me give this up was precisely the argument that because Vygotsky relied on and even made free use of the words of others to construct his argument, that argument lacks the originality and importance that we have imputed to it. As Sonia Sotomayor says that Andre Gide says, "Toutes choses sont deja dites, mais puis'qu'on n'ecoute rien, il faut recommencer." So when you are reading a translation, there is always the possibility--nay, the certainty--that you are reading the translator and not the translatee. This is because language isn't just made of ideational meaning; it's not just about what was said but about who said it and when. In Halliday, this "who" is called "interpersonal meaning", and it is just as important as the representational, or informational meaning: for many purposes, including first language acquisition, it is more important. If you are reading Vygotsky in English, you are probably reading something somebody else wrote after reading Vygotsky. That person may be quite close to us in time (if you are reading the translations done by the late Francois Seve or those being done by Irina Leopoldoff-Martin) or they may be lost in the mists (if you are reading "Tool and Sign"). But that person is not actually Vygotsky, which is why you can understand it at all and do something with it yourself. I don't think "tongue" is such a bad translation of "yazik" for my purposes, actually: it corresponds pretty exactly to what we call "mother tongue" or "our word" in the Korean curriculum. It's the system of the native language, with all of its meaning potential and its context of culture. But I do believe, as Halliday does, that meaning is made at all levels, from semantics right down to phonetics and back again. Of course, some of these levels are more resilient to death than others. Interpersonal meaning is, as Halliday says, "field like": what he means is that it is not about constructing a representation out of particle like words (SVO or SOV or Participant-Process, etc.) but rather about giving and getting (propositions and proposals, goods and services, sense and emotion). This is quite literally wave like: it is largely conveyed through sound waves, through intonation and through stress, and so it doesn't weather quite as well as ideational meaning does when the speaker dies. But this should not make us think there was never anything there except ink and paper, information and logic, dictionary words and grammar book rules Because I am teaching phonology today, I was trying to make the point that the consonants and vowels are not equally vehicles of intonation and stress: vowels are far more intonio-extressive than consonants. That's why you can write a telegramme with all consonants, but not with all vowels. And it's also why you can sing with all vowels but not with all consonants. It stands to reason, then, that the vowels, which as the name suggests, carry so much voicing, should carry the burden of sense rather than signification. When I was in my twenties, for reasons that need not concern us here, I spent fifty five days in solitary confinement; I was allowed out for a piss once a night, and so I had to regulate my water intake very carefully to make sure that I didn't get caught short. When I was finally released, into a cell which had it own toilet, it was better than freedom, even better than food. Summer was coming (it was in a very hot country) and here suddenly I could drink as much water as I wanted and even take diluted coffee and sugared tea with breakfast! Even now, thirty years later, when I have to get up in the middle of the night, I can almost hear the prisoners in Fidelio singing "O Welche Lust!": (Out here is life, back there was the grave!) (Notice how much of this song is vowels, and how much you can understand the interpersonal meaning with out any of the words!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdB0roPqg7Q (It turns out, by the way, that Vygotsky and Voloshinov BOTH got the Doestoevsky passage, not from Dostoevsky, but from Jakubinsky! Somehow, the idea of Vygotsky and Voloshinov reading some third text together as they rode the tram to the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, makes it even more wonderful than if one had just read it in the work of the other.) David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 1:35 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > Here's how it appears in MiS, in two places. First as the tool of thought, > then as tool of tools. No more tongues in the volume. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 6:49 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Cc: VEER@FSW.leidenuniv.nl > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion > > Peter- > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top of > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with respect > to Dewey is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in > this context should be translated as language. Another casualty of > collective editing of the translator's work. > > mike > editing. > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > > I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > > colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found > > it interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > > work to argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas > > borrowed heavily from other sources than an original culminating > > statement on human development, an issue obscured by editors who > > removed quotation marks from appropriated material. The ways in which > > Vygotsky as we now know him was shaped by those who produced the volume > is interesting in and of itself. > > > > I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > > that occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and > sense. > > Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > > smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote > then. > > What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > > emotional foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition > > and affect can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how > > that process might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, > > produces the material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their > > way to articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > > > [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in > > a class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > > tongue is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part > > because I typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > > alliterative tongue. Very nice.] > > > > In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to > > follow up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > interesting. > > Am I on the right trail? > > > > http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > > The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., > > unarticulated inner speech), while the term znachenie has been > > translated as meaning (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign > system such as words). > > Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > > the meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of > > meaning in greater detail. > > Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with > > a sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) > > called inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > > stream-of-consciousness properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. > > Smysl corresponds to what Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial > > zone of meaning in a reader's evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers > > to as imagination. Rosenblatt describes this experience as > > > > a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated > > by what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning > > will be derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, > > echoes, resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, > > contrasts, or surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of > > emotion, idea, situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of > a work of art. > > (pp. 57-58) > > > > Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm > > cloud of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's > > (1987) metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that > > it cannot be empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's > > formulation of inner speech came from his observations of egocentric > > speech in young children, which he theorized became internalized as > > inner speech. Once speech (or another tool) is articulated and thus > > observable, it appears in the zone of meaning that is the shower of > > words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls znachenie. Znachenie, then, > > is the zone of meaning available in represented form, corresponding to > the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > > Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > > referring to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the > > translation of sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the > > psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of > > the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex formation which has > several zones that vary in their stability" > > (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > > > It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In > > different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, > > [articulation] is a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that > > remains constant with all the exchanges of the word's sense that are > > associated with its use in various contexts. (p. 275) > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Apr 9 01:02:16 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 08:02:16 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <1523260936467.33951@iped.uio.no> Thanks Peter for following up on the Van der Veer / Zavershneva article that you so kindly shared here. And sorry, David, that I have not yet been able to find the time to address your thorough and developing reviews of the article, which are, as usual, very insightful as well as felicitiously debate-able. I did read the article, and, as Mike already notes, the first thing I would say is that this should be a very welcome piece in that it adds a really rich item to a growing number of works that help us situated Vygotsky's legacy in its cultural and historical context. Specially welcome are the clarifications concerning the multiple citations and paraphrasing, some of which W-M Roth and others had flagged before. I am however not even close to literate enough on these topics so as to add much, beyond re-stating that perhaps most important than finding out about the "intentions" of the author may be testing out which research avenues can be pursued by following the lines (not new, but still lines that grow) drawn in chapter seven. But I wanted to reply to-reinsert Rene's e-mail, which had not been copied in the last response. Please, unless Ren? would rather like to be dropped, remember to "reply all" and not just hit the reply button when answering to this thread. I also wondered whether David would like to add (attached as pdf perhaps?) his previous posts, which I thought raised good and well-informed questions. Alfredo Jornet ________________________________ New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and intransitive dimensions" Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: 08 April 2018 01:58 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion Well, David's comments consisted of two parts. The first part was pretty incoherent--I just objected that they hadn't read the chapter the way I did, with an emphasis on what Halliday calls "logogenesis" as opposed to phylogenesis and ontogenesis. After some reflection, I wrote something a little better, in which I argued that the distinction between "phasal" and "semantic" was key to the chapter. When I think back at what I wrote, though, the first part is really reproaching them for not reading Halliday and the second part for not reading Saussure. Obviously, the second part is a little fairer than the first...but in a hundred years I daresay things will be the other way around: Saussure will only be of historical interest, but Halliday himself will be part of our own living history. I always wondered about that, Mike. In the preface to Mind in Society, it says the first four chapters are from Tool and Sign, but the fourth chapter is clearly from the end of Chapter Two of HDHMF. Vygotsky says: ???, ?. ????, ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ???????????, ????????? ???? ???????????????? ?????? ? ?????? ????????, ?????????? ???? ??? ?????? ??????, ???????? ??????????? ????, ?????? ???????????, ?? ????. So it's not about the "tongue" at all--it's about "language" and then about "speech". And what's the difference? Here I think Peter's got a point. The difference between "znachenie" and "smysl" is semantic. But semantics, according to Halliday, has a way of "rising to the concrete"--that is, all the patterns, from lexicogrammar to phonology to phonetics, can be semantically motivated one way or another. So for example at the level of lexicogrammar, there are some words that are closer to "smysl", because they are so embedded in the context of situation (these are the ones favored in infant speech and early childhood, the "this" and the "that" and the "there" and "here" and "it" and "the" and so on, whose reference is immediate and constantly changing as a result). But so many of these words, iin Englsh, begin with voiced interdental "th". Why? Well, it's not just Tibetans and native Americans who point with their lips, Henry! There is a fair amount of pointing with the tongue going on here. But less trivially, I think you'll find that sense is linked to VOWELS (as well as to intonation and stress) whle signification is carried disproportionately in consonants. Because there is meaning being made at every level, we can see, at every level, Vygotsky's distinction between sense and signification (which is really identical to Voloshinov's between "theme" and "meaning"). David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote: > Hi again, Peter-- > > Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was great to > see the > identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking them > down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years --Russian and > non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, like the earlier work > with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to the > shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* > > I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the chapter > under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the moment. When it is > recoverable, > it seems worth putting together with your comments for discussion (assuming > that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook for > organizing > and the perils/virtues of activism). > > mike > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > Peter- > > > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top > of > > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with > respect > > to Dewey > > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this > > context should be translated as language. Another casualty of collective > > editing of the translator's work. > > > > mike > > editing. > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky > wrote: > > > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found it > >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > work to > >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas borrowed > >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on > human > >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks > from > >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him was > >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of itself. > >> > >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > that > >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and sense. > >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > >> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote > then. > >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > emotional > >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect > >> can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that process > >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the > >> material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to > >> articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > >> > >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in a > >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > tongue > >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I > >> typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > alliterative > >> tongue. Very nice.] > >> > >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to follow > >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? > >> > >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., unarticulated > >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning > >> (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as words). > >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > the > >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in > >> greater detail. > >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with a > >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) called > >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > stream-of-consciousness > >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to what > >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a reader's > >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt > >> describes this experience as > >> > >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated by > >> what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning will > be > >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or > >> surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, > >> situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of art. > >> (pp. 57-58) > >> > >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm cloud > >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) > >> metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it > cannot be > >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of inner > >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young > children, > >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech (or > >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the > zone of > >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls > >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in > represented > >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > referring > >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation of > >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that > arise > >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, > fluid, > >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their > stability" > >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > >> > >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In different > >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a > >> comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with all > >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in > >> various contexts. (p. 275) > >> > >> > > > From andyb@marxists.org Mon Apr 9 02:42:17 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 19:42:17 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2f5bb9eb-fe0e-8fff-409a-a3b30845ef6c@marxists.org> "Those engaged in the propagation of knowledge of all kinds, in particular those whose appointed task is teaching, have as their specific function and duty (above all in the case of the positive sciences, the doctrine of a church, the study of positive law, &c.) the repetition of well-established thoughts, taken up /ab extra /and all of them given expression already. The same is true of writings devised for teaching purposes and the spread and propagation of the sciences. Now to what extent does the new form which turns up when something is expressed again and again transform the available stock of knowledge, and in particular the thoughts of others who still retain /external /property in those intellectual productions of theirs, into a private mental property of the individual reproducer and thereby give him or fail to give him the right to make them his /external /property as well? To what extent is such repetition of another?s material in one?s book a plagiarism? There is no precise principle of determination available to answer these questions, and therefore they cannot be finally settled either in principle or by positive legislation." (Hegel, 1821) Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 9/04/2018 5:45 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > You know, in a funny, weird way, I think the problem of who wrote what in > Chapter Seven is related. Take, for example, that great quote from > Dostoevsky's diary that appears verbatim, more or less, in Voloshinov. Did > Vygotsky take it from Voloshinov, or did he take it from Dostoevsky? I used > to think this was terribly important (and I used to think it was terribly > important that who said what when in Mind in Society was terribly > important). What made me give this up was precisely the argument that > because Vygotsky relied on and even made free use of the words of others to > construct his argument, that argument lacks the originality and importance > that we have imputed to it. As Sonia Sotomayor says that Andre Gide says, > "Toutes choses sont deja dites, mais puis'qu'on n'ecoute rien, il faut > recommencer." > > So when you are reading a translation, there is always the > possibility--nay, the certainty--that you are reading the translator and > not the translatee. This is because language isn't just made of ideational > meaning; it's not just about what was said but about who said it and when. > In Halliday, this "who" is called "interpersonal meaning", and it is just > as important as the representational, or informational meaning: for many > purposes, including first language acquisition, it is more important. If > you are reading Vygotsky in English, you are probably reading something > somebody else wrote after reading Vygotsky. That person may be quite close > to us in time (if you are reading the translations done by the late > Francois Seve or those being done by Irina Leopoldoff-Martin) or they may > be lost in the mists (if you are reading "Tool and Sign"). But that person > is not actually Vygotsky, which is why you can understand it at all and do > something with it yourself. I don't think "tongue" is such a bad > translation of "yazik" for my purposes, actually: it corresponds pretty > exactly to what we call "mother tongue" or "our word" in the Korean > curriculum. It's the system of the native language, with all of its meaning > potential and its context of culture. > > But I do believe, as Halliday does, that meaning is made at all levels, > from semantics right down to phonetics and back again. Of course, some of > these levels are more resilient to death than others. Interpersonal meaning > is, as Halliday says, "field like": what he means is that it is not about > constructing a representation out of particle like words (SVO or SOV or > Participant-Process, etc.) but rather about giving and getting > (propositions and proposals, goods and services, sense and emotion). This > is quite literally wave like: it is largely conveyed through sound waves, > through intonation and through stress, and so it doesn't weather quite as > well as ideational meaning does when the speaker dies. But this should not > make us think there was never anything there except ink and paper, > information and logic, dictionary words and grammar book rules > > Because I am teaching phonology today, I was trying to make the point that > the consonants and vowels are not equally vehicles of intonation and > stress: vowels are far more intonio-extressive than consonants. That's why > you can write a telegramme with all consonants, but not with all vowels. > And it's also why you can sing with all vowels but not with all consonants. > It stands to reason, then, that the vowels, which as the name suggests, > carry so much voicing, should carry the burden of sense rather than > signification. When I was in my twenties, for reasons that need not concern > us here, I spent fifty five days in solitary confinement; I was allowed out > for a piss once a night, and so I had to regulate my water intake very > carefully to make sure that I didn't get caught short. When I was finally > released, into a cell which had it own toilet, it was better than freedom, > even better than food. Summer was coming (it was in a very hot country) and > here suddenly I could drink as much water as I wanted and even take diluted > coffee and sugared tea with breakfast! Even now, thirty years later, when I > have to get up in the middle of the night, I can almost hear the prisoners > in Fidelio singing "O Welche Lust!": (Out here is life, back there was the > grave!) (Notice how much of this song is vowels, and how much you can > understand the interpersonal meaning with out any of the words!) > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdB0roPqg7Q > > (It turns out, by the way, that Vygotsky and Voloshinov BOTH got the > Doestoevsky passage, not from Dostoevsky, but from Jakubinsky! Somehow, the > idea of Vygotsky and Voloshinov reading some third text together as they > rode the tram to the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, makes it even more > wonderful than if one had just read it in the work of the other.) > > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 1:35 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > >> Here's how it appears in MiS, in two places. First as the tool of thought, >> then as tool of tools. No more tongues in the volume. >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 6:49 PM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Cc: VEER@FSW.leidenuniv.nl >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion >> >> Peter- >> >> I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top of >> the always-growing stack of "must read nows." >> >> Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with respect >> to Dewey is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in >> this context should be translated as language. Another casualty of >> collective editing of the translator's work. >> >> mike >> editing. >> >> >> >> On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: >> >>> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and >>> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found >>> it interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical >>> work to argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas >>> borrowed heavily from other sources than an original culminating >>> statement on human development, an issue obscured by editors who >>> removed quotation marks from appropriated material. The ways in which >>> Vygotsky as we now know him was shaped by those who produced the volume >> is interesting in and of itself. >>> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something >>> that occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and >> sense. >>> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this >>> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote >> then. >>> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply >>> emotional foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition >>> and affect can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how >>> that process might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, >>> produces the material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their >>> way to articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). >>> >>> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it in >>> a class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the >>> tongue is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part >>> because I typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more >>> alliterative tongue. Very nice.] >>> >>> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to >>> follow up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find >> interesting. >>> Am I on the right trail? >>> >>> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf >>> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., >>> unarticulated inner speech), while the term znachenie has been >>> translated as meaning (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign >> system such as words). >>> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of >>> the meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of >>> meaning in greater detail. >>> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes with >>> a sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) >>> called inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and >>> stream-of-consciousness properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. >>> Smysl corresponds to what Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial >>> zone of meaning in a reader's evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers >>> to as imagination. Rosenblatt describes this experience as >>> >>> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated >>> by what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning >>> will be derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, >>> echoes, resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, >>> contrasts, or surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of >>> emotion, idea, situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of >> a work of art. >>> (pp. 57-58) >>> >>> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm >>> cloud of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's >>> (1987) metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that >>> it cannot be empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's >>> formulation of inner speech came from his observations of egocentric >>> speech in young children, which he theorized became internalized as >>> inner speech. Once speech (or another tool) is articulated and thus >>> observable, it appears in the zone of meaning that is the shower of >>> words (or other signs) that Vygotsky calls znachenie. Znachenie, then, >>> is the zone of meaning available in represented form, corresponding to >> the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. >>> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, >>> referring to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the >>> translation of sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the >>> psychological facts that arise in our consciousness as the result of >>> the word. Sense is a dynamic, fluid, and complex formation which has >> several zones that vary in their stability" >>> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: >>> >>> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In >>> different contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, >>> [articulation] is a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that >>> remains constant with all the exchanges of the word's sense that are >>> associated with its use in various contexts. (p. 275) >>> >>> From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Apr 9 14:54:56 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 06:54:56 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: <1523260936467.33951@iped.uio.no> References: <1523260936467.33951@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Alfredo: In your note below you say that you reinserted an email response from Rene van der Veer, but I couldn't find any such attached. Anyway, here's a pdf of the two comments I wrote on the chapter, as requested. I recently did a study on "involuntary creativity" in children. The data was pretty straightforward (children trying to remember Hamlet, actually--quite similar to Peter Smagorinsky's data in the paper he circulated recently). But the theoretical background was, as usual, clear as mud to me. We know how "conditioned responses" arise: Pavlov demonstrated this in the laboratory, and Vygotsky theorized it using cultural history: the "response" as such is given by the hereditary endowment but the environment is manipulated in some way, as when humans go from hunting to herding, or from gathering to farming. We know much less precisely how the NEXT form of higher behavior, creativity and intelligent solutions to unprecedent problems, can arise, and it seems to me that one possiblity is that it arise precisely when children try to plagiarize and fail because of the semantic rather than lexicogrammatical or phonological nature of their linguistic memory. For example, last week I was teaching "How languages are learned" by Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada. The first chapter tells a funny little story about a five year old's birthday party. The children are drinking grape juice from long-stemmed glasses, and the parent, adultomorphizing a bit, raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a toast", to which all the other adults, and the children somewhat belatedly, respond by raising their long-stemmed glasses. A few minutes later, the birthday boy raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a piece of bread." I probably got the anecdote wrong, and I am quite sure that Lantolf got it wrong when he used it in an article about ten years ago, but perhaps that's Hegel's point. Even if you could get a toast, or an anecdote, or a quote verbatim; even if you could translate perfectly from one language (e.g. English) into a highly cognate language (e.g. Dutch), the translation wouldn't and couldn't avoid involuntary creativity, because the interpersonal meaning has changed. Interpersonal meaning (or, if you like, sense) is made at all levels: sounding (phonology/graphology/punctuation), wording (lexicogrammar) and meaning (semantics). It's not just in tone and voice quality, or punctuation and style, although interpersonal meaning certainly is expressed at that level (commas are becoming largely a matter of style, and in the nineteenth century, the use of quotation marks was too).Interpersonal meaning is also expressed in the proportion of exclamatives, interrogatives, and declaratives you use (Vygotsky the teacher turns out to use a lot more exclamatives and more of what we would call "known answer questions" today than Vygotsky the writer). Our memory for the grammatical form of what people say to us is remarkably poor, and in some cases the grammatical mood is not even clear the first time it was said (Should. "I wonder what he meant by that" have a question mark or a full stop?) And of course, at the level of "pure" semantics (assuming that there is such a level) interpersonal meaning is encoded in your choice of audience: the one or the many, your students or posterity. What's interesting in Vygotsky is not simply that he quotes verbatim; it's also that he gets the quotes spectatucularly wrong in places (Thorndike, for example, becomes a progressive, holistic math educator, and G. Stanley Hall a humanist psychologist!). He translates, but hardly ever word for word, and always with his own volitionally creative goals in mind. The technique is really not that different from involuntary creativity--transposing utterances from one context to another--but the motives and aims and audience and hence sense certainly are. I sometimes think that in the era of machine translation--one that Halliday predicted in the 1950s--now lies in annotation, footnotes and reference lists, and it's really here that v der V and Z have done us a priceless service. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 5:02 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks Peter for following up on the Van der Veer / Zavershneva article > that you so kindly shared here. And sorry, David, that I have not yet been > able to find the time to address your thorough and developing reviews of > the article, which are, as usual, very insightful as well as felicitiously > debate-able. > > I did read the article, and, as Mike already notes, the first thing I > would say is that this should be a very welcome piece in that it adds a > really rich item to a growing number of works that help us situated > Vygotsky's legacy in its cultural and historical context. Specially welcome > are the clarifications concerning the multiple citations and paraphrasing, > some of which W-M Roth and others had flagged before. > > I am however not even close to literate enough on these topics so as to > add much, beyond re-stating that perhaps most important than finding out > about the "intentions" of the author may be testing out which research > avenues can be pursued by following the lines (not new, but still lines > that grow) drawn in chapter seven. > > But I wanted to reply to-reinsert Rene's e-mail, which had not been copied > in the last response. Please, unless Ren? would rather like to be dropped, > remember to "reply all" and not just hit the reply button when answering to > this thread. > I also wondered whether David would like to add (attached as pdf perhaps?) > his previous posts, which I thought raised good and well-informed questions. > > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Kellogg > Sent: 08 April 2018 01:58 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion > > Well, David's comments consisted of two parts. The first part was pretty > incoherent--I just objected that they hadn't read the chapter the way I > did, with an emphasis on what Halliday calls "logogenesis" as opposed to > phylogenesis and ontogenesis. After some reflection, I wrote something a > little better, in which I argued that the distinction between "phasal" and > "semantic" was key to the chapter. When I think back at what I wrote, > though, the first part is really reproaching them for not reading Halliday > and the second part for not reading Saussure. Obviously, the second part is > a little fairer than the first...but in a hundred years I daresay things > will be the other way around: Saussure will only be of historical interest, > but Halliday himself will be part of our own living history. > > I always wondered about that, Mike. In the preface to Mind in Society, it > says the first four chapters are from Tool and Sign, but the fourth chapter > is clearly from the end of Chapter Two of HDHMF. Vygotsky says: > > ???, ?. ????, ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ???????????, ????????? ???? > ???????????????? ?????? ? ?????? ????????, ?????????? ???? ??? ?????? > ??????, ???????? ??????????? ????, ?????? ???????????, ?? ????. > > So it's not about the "tongue" at all--it's about "language" and then about > "speech". And what's the difference? > > Here I think Peter's got a point. The difference between "znachenie" and > "smysl" is semantic. But semantics, according to Halliday, has a way of > "rising to the concrete"--that is, all the patterns, from lexicogrammar to > phonology to phonetics, can be semantically motivated one way or another. > So for example at the level of lexicogrammar, there are some words that are > closer to "smysl", because they are so embedded in the context of situation > (these are the ones favored in infant speech and early childhood, the > "this" and the "that" and the "there" and "here" and "it" and "the" and so > on, whose reference is immediate and constantly changing as a result). But > so many of these words, iin Englsh, begin with voiced interdental "th". > Why? > > Well, it's not just Tibetans and native Americans who point with their > lips, Henry! There is a fair amount of pointing with the tongue going on > here. But less trivially, I think you'll find that sense is linked to > VOWELS (as well as to intonation and stress) whle signification is carried > disproportionately in consonants. Because there is meaning being made at > every level, we can see, at every level, Vygotsky's distinction between > sense and signification (which is really identical to Voloshinov's between > "theme" and "meaning"). > > > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Hi again, Peter-- > > > > Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was great > to > > see the > > identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking them > > down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years --Russian and > > non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, like the earlier > work > > with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to the > > shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* > > > > I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the chapter > > under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the moment. When it is > > recoverable, > > it seems worth putting together with your comments for discussion > (assuming > > that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook for > > organizing > > and the perils/virtues of activism). > > > > mike > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > Peter- > > > > > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top > > of > > > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > > > > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with > > respect > > > to Dewey > > > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this > > > context should be translated as language. Another casualty of > collective > > > editing of the translator's work. > > > > > > mike > > > editing. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > > > > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > > >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found > it > > >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > > work to > > >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas > borrowed > > >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on > > human > > >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks > > from > > >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him > was > > >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of > itself. > > >> > > >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > > that > > >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and > sense. > > >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > > >> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote > > then. > > >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > > emotional > > >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect > > >> can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that > process > > >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the > > >> material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to > > >> articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > >> > > >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it > in a > > >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > > tongue > > >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I > > >> typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > > alliterative > > >> tongue. Very nice.] > > >> > > >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to > follow > > >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > > >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? > > >> > > >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > > >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., > unarticulated > > >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning > > >> (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as > words). > > >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > > the > > >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in > > >> greater detail. > > >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes > with a > > >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) > called > > >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > > stream-of-consciousness > > >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to > what > > >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a > reader's > > >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt > > >> describes this experience as > > >> > > >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated > by > > >> what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning > will > > be > > >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > > >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or > > >> surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, > > >> situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of > art. > > >> (pp. 57-58) > > >> > > >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm > cloud > > >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) > > >> metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it > > cannot be > > >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of > inner > > >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young > > children, > > >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech > (or > > >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the > > zone of > > >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky > calls > > >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in > > represented > > >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > > >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > > referring > > >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation > of > > >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that > > arise > > >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, > > fluid, > > >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their > > stability" > > >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > >> > > >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In > different > > >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a > > >> comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with > all > > >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in > > >> various contexts. (p. 275) > > >> > > >> > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Notes on Van der Veer and Zavershneva.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 71910 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180410/cbc1b1d6/attachment.pdf From smago@uga.edu Mon Apr 9 15:09:19 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 22:09:19 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: <1523260936467.33951@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Just a brief note, since we've addressed problems of translation. Jane Knox, one of Plenum's Vygotsky translators, has written that "conditioned response" is a mistranslation, and that it should be "conditional response," which is much more oriented to the environment than internal functioning. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of David Kellogg Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 5:55 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Cc: veer@fsw.leidenuniv.nl Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion Alfredo: In your note below you say that you reinserted an email response from Rene van der Veer, but I couldn't find any such attached. Anyway, here's a pdf of the two comments I wrote on the chapter, as requested. I recently did a study on "involuntary creativity" in children. The data was pretty straightforward (children trying to remember Hamlet, actually--quite similar to Peter Smagorinsky's data in the paper he circulated recently). But the theoretical background was, as usual, clear as mud to me. We know how "conditioned responses" arise: Pavlov demonstrated this in the laboratory, and Vygotsky theorized it using cultural history: the "response" as such is given by the hereditary endowment but the environment is manipulated in some way, as when humans go from hunting to herding, or from gathering to farming. We know much less precisely how the NEXT form of higher behavior, creativity and intelligent solutions to unprecedent problems, can arise, and it seems to me that one possiblity is that it arise precisely when children try to plagiarize and fail because of the semantic rather than lexicogrammatical or phonological nature of their linguistic memory. For example, last week I was teaching "How languages are learned" by Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada. The first chapter tells a funny little story about a five year old's birthday party. The children are drinking grape juice from long-stemmed glasses, and the parent, adultomorphizing a bit, raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a toast", to which all the other adults, and the children somewhat belatedly, respond by raising their long-stemmed glasses. A few minutes later, the birthday boy raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a piece of bread." I probably got the anecdote wrong, and I am quite sure that Lantolf got it wrong when he used it in an article about ten years ago, but perhaps that's Hegel's point. Even if you could get a toast, or an anecdote, or a quote verbatim; even if you could translate perfectly from one language (e.g. English) into a highly cognate language (e.g. Dutch), the translation wouldn't and couldn't avoid involuntary creativity, because the interpersonal meaning has changed. Interpersonal meaning (or, if you like, sense) is made at all levels: sounding (phonology/graphology/punctuation), wording (lexicogrammar) and meaning (semantics). It's not just in tone and voice quality, or punctuation and style, although interpersonal meaning certainly is expressed at that level (commas are becoming largely a matter of style, and in the nineteenth century, the use of quotation marks was too).Interpersonal meaning is also expressed in the proportion of exclamatives, interrogatives, and declaratives you use (Vygotsky the teacher turns out to use a lot more exclamatives and more of what we would call "known answer questions" today than Vygotsky the writer). Our memory for the grammatical form of what people say to us is remarkably poor, and in some cases the grammatical mood is not even clear the first time it was said (Should. "I wonder what he meant by that" have a question mark or a full stop?) And of course, at the level of "pure" semantics (assuming that there is such a level) interpersonal meaning is encoded in your choice of audience: the one or the many, your students or posterity. What's interesting in Vygotsky is not simply that he quotes verbatim; it's also that he gets the quotes spectatucularly wrong in places (Thorndike, for example, becomes a progressive, holistic math educator, and G. Stanley Hall a humanist psychologist!). He translates, but hardly ever word for word, and always with his own volitionally creative goals in mind. The technique is really not that different from involuntary creativity--transposing utterances from one context to another--but the motives and aims and audience and hence sense certainly are. I sometimes think that in the era of machine translation--one that Halliday predicted in the 1950s--now lies in annotation, footnotes and reference lists, and it's really here that v der V and Z have done us a priceless service. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 5:02 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks Peter for following up on the Van der Veer / Zavershneva > article that you so kindly shared here. And sorry, David, that I have > not yet been able to find the time to address your thorough and > developing reviews of the article, which are, as usual, very > insightful as well as felicitiously debate-able. > > I did read the article, and, as Mike already notes, the first thing I > would say is that this should be a very welcome piece in that it adds > a really rich item to a growing number of works that help us situated > Vygotsky's legacy in its cultural and historical context. Specially > welcome are the clarifications concerning the multiple citations and > paraphrasing, some of which W-M Roth and others had flagged before. > > I am however not even close to literate enough on these topics so as > to add much, beyond re-stating that perhaps most important than > finding out about the "intentions" of the author may be testing out > which research avenues can be pursued by following the lines (not new, > but still lines that grow) drawn in chapter seven. > > But I wanted to reply to-reinsert Rene's e-mail, which had not been > copied in the last response. Please, unless Ren? would rather like to > be dropped, remember to "reply all" and not just hit the reply button > when answering to this thread. > I also wondered whether David would like to add (attached as pdf > perhaps?) his previous posts, which I thought raised good and well-informed questions. > > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Kellogg > > Sent: 08 April 2018 01:58 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion > > Well, David's comments consisted of two parts. The first part was > pretty incoherent--I just objected that they hadn't read the chapter > the way I did, with an emphasis on what Halliday calls "logogenesis" > as opposed to phylogenesis and ontogenesis. After some reflection, I > wrote something a little better, in which I argued that the > distinction between "phasal" and "semantic" was key to the chapter. > When I think back at what I wrote, though, the first part is really > reproaching them for not reading Halliday and the second part for not > reading Saussure. Obviously, the second part is a little fairer than > the first...but in a hundred years I daresay things will be the other > way around: Saussure will only be of historical interest, but Halliday himself will be part of our own living history. > > I always wondered about that, Mike. In the preface to Mind in Society, > it says the first four chapters are from Tool and Sign, but the fourth > chapter is clearly from the end of Chapter Two of HDHMF. Vygotsky says: > > ???, ?. ????, ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ???????????, ????????? > ???? ???????????????? ?????? ? ?????? ????????, ?????????? ???? ??? > ?????? ??????, ???????? ??????????? ????, ?????? ???????????, ?? ????. > > So it's not about the "tongue" at all--it's about "language" and then > about "speech". And what's the difference? > > Here I think Peter's got a point. The difference between "znachenie" > and "smysl" is semantic. But semantics, according to Halliday, has a > way of "rising to the concrete"--that is, all the patterns, from > lexicogrammar to phonology to phonetics, can be semantically motivated one way or another. > So for example at the level of lexicogrammar, there are some words > that are closer to "smysl", because they are so embedded in the > context of situation (these are the ones favored in infant speech and > early childhood, the "this" and the "that" and the "there" and "here" > and "it" and "the" and so on, whose reference is immediate and > constantly changing as a result). But so many of these words, iin Englsh, begin with voiced interdental "th". > Why? > > Well, it's not just Tibetans and native Americans who point with their > lips, Henry! There is a fair amount of pointing with the tongue going > on here. But less trivially, I think you'll find that sense is linked > to VOWELS (as well as to intonation and stress) whle signification is > carried disproportionately in consonants. Because there is meaning > being made at every level, we can see, at every level, Vygotsky's > distinction between sense and signification (which is really identical > to Voloshinov's between "theme" and "meaning"). > > > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and > the child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Hi again, Peter-- > > > > Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was > > great > to > > see the > > identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking > > them down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years > > --Russian and non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, > > like the earlier > work > > with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to > > the shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* > > > > I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the > > chapter under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the > > moment. When it is recoverable, it seems worth putting together with > > your comments for discussion > (assuming > > that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook > > for organizing and the perils/virtues of activism). > > > > mike > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > Peter- > > > > > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to > > > the top > > of > > > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > > > > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with > > respect > > > to Dewey > > > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in > > > this context should be translated as language. Another casualty of > collective > > > editing of the translator's work. > > > > > > mike > > > editing. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > > > > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > > >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and > > >> found > it > > >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some > > >> historical > > work to > > >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas > borrowed > > >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement > > >> on > > human > > >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation > > >> marks > > from > > >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know > > >> him > was > > >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of > itself. > > >> > > >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was > > >> something > > that > > >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and > sense. > > >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on > > >> this smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe > > >> what I wrote > > then. > > >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > > emotional > > >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and > > >> affect can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how > > >> that > process > > >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces > > >> the material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way > > >> to articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > >> > > >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using > > >> it > in a > > >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how > > >> "the > > tongue > > >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because > > >> I typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > > alliterative > > >> tongue. Very nice.] > > >> > > >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to > follow > > >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > > >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? > > >> > > >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > > >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., > unarticulated > > >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as > > >> meaning (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system > > >> such as > words). > > >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as > > >> constituents of > > the > > >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of > > >> meaning in greater detail. > > >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes > with a > > >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) > called > > >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > > stream-of-consciousness > > >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds > > >> to > what > > >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a > reader's > > >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. > > >> Rosenblatt describes this experience as > > >> > > >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be > > >> activated > by > > >> what follows, and providing the context from which further > > >> meaning > will > > be > > >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > > >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, > > >> contrasts, or surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the > > >> structuring of emotion, idea, situation, character, plot-in > > >> short, for the evocation of a work of > art. > > >> (pp. 57-58) > > >> > > >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the > > >> storm > cloud > > >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's > > >> (1987) metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is > > >> that it > > cannot be > > >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation > > >> of > inner > > >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young > > children, > > >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once > > >> speech > (or > > >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in > > >> the > > zone of > > >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that > > >> Vygotsky > calls > > >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in > > represented > > >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > > >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > > referring > > >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the > > >> translation > of > > >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts > > >> that > > arise > > >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a > > >> dynamic, > > fluid, > > >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their > > stability" > > >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > >> > > >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In > different > > >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is > > >> a comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant > > >> with > all > > >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its > > >> use in various contexts. (p. 275) > > >> > > >> > > > > > > > From smago@uga.edu Mon Apr 9 15:58:12 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 22:58:12 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] conditional response Message-ID: I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy research: A methodological framework. Boston: Sense. I think Knox might have been the translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of Vygotsky's Collected Works, In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent English terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has joined in the use of the term conditional reflex for the older conditioned reflex, both in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By the time Watson adopted the Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone for behaviorist psychology in the 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been mis-translated "conditioned" (as a Russian passive past participle), and the whole process was designated as "conditioning" (see Boring, 1950). At mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) suggested that "Pavlov meant that the occurrence of the reflex to a novel cue was literally conditional [sic] upon certain operations" and observed that "in contemporary American psychology ['conditioned' had] become practically synonymous with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to Vygotsky, 1993, pp. vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Apr 9 16:58:14 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 08:58:14 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes, I remember this point, and it's something we've discussed in our translation group at some length. Here's what I think. Suppose I am writing for my students. They will not know what a conditional response is. They will think it differs from what they have always called a conditioned response. I could explain that they have been taught wrongly, and that they have learned wrongly, and that the actual translation should be "conditioned response". They will wonder what the difference is. They will soon figure out that in fact I mean exactly the same thing, at least in terms of my ideational (representational) meaning: I am talking (they will think) about a dog salivating at the sound of a bell.So they will wonder what the interpersonal intention of my correction is. Because my students are Korean students, and they are quite sensitive both to the value of tradition and to the value of apparently unmotivated attempts to undermine it, they will assume that I am being arrogant and making their lives more difficult than necessary to fill an otherwise empty ego. And because I have lived here for twenty years, I will not say that they are wrong, not least because if there is a difference, it actually speaks in favor of the "mistranslation". "Conditional" will not take an agent, that is, we do not say "conditional by me". "Conditioned" does take an agent: I conditioned a response, ergo the response was conditioned by me. In Vygotsky's 1930 model (roughly, what we read in HDHMF, with the four levels of higher behavior in Chapters 3 and 4) the difference between natural instinct and enculturated habit is not in the response at all, but rather in the conditions--natural or artificial--that evoke that response. In the case of instinct, the conditions are merely conditional--where the condition is food, there is salivation. But in the case of habits, the response is conditioned: there is always the possibility of a "by", whether to indicate the instrumentality or the actor. The "conditioned by" response, not the conditional response, was how humans transformed hunting and gathering into herding and farming. Awareness of this agency enabled Vygotsky to transform an essentially physiological theory, reflexology, into a cultural-historical one, which became CHAT. This wasn't his last step, but it was a crucial one. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:58 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy research: A > methodological framework. Boston: Sense. sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= > 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the > translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) > > > I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated > conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and > animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the > conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. > According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of Vygotsky's > Collected Works, > > In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent English > terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has joined in the > use of the term conditional reflex for the older conditioned reflex, both > in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By the time Watson adopted the > Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone for behaviorist psychology in the > 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been mis-translated "conditioned" (as a > Russian passive past participle), and the whole process was designated as > "conditioning" (see Boring, 1950). At mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) > suggested that "Pavlov meant that the occurrence of the reflex to a novel > cue was literally conditional [sic] upon certain operations" and observed > that "in contemporary American psychology ['conditioned' had] become > practically synonymous with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to > Vygotsky, 1993, pp. vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Apr 9 17:10:57 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2018 17:10:57 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: David and Peter -- Impossible to hold the beginning of the conversation stable with such interesting, related topics piling up. As a feeble attempt to claw my way back to the beginning..... About conditional response & translation: I took my first psychology course with Celeste McCollough at Oberlin college in 1955. She is famous in psychology for the "McCollough effect" (a perceptual color aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation). But the class she taught us was Skinnerian behaviorism mingled with Pavlov. The term was referred to as a condition*ed* reflex, as it often is still today. I had a very difficult time learning to distinguish conditioned from unconditioned learning. CS- US - UCS in some sort of combination. Confusing to me anyway. The Russian term, uslovni ( ????????) as in "uslovni refleks" is, as Peter points out most sensibly translated as conditional. If you do not understand it in this way, you do not understand what Pavlov was claiming. Nor do you understand the difference between Pavlov and Skinner. So translation makes a difference. we started this part of the discussion with the example of *tongue* in the text. It is sort of doubly misleading. Firstly, before I saw the Russian text that David provided, I assumed that it was a mistranslation language. Nope. It was a mistranslation of rech (speech). At this point, we also lose track of the relationship between Dewey and Vygotsky. There was a time when LSV referred to what he was engaged in as a form of instrumental psychology. As much discussed, the ideas of the two men were similar in many ways. I published a discussion about the causes and consequences of mistranslating obuchenie as learning, not instruction. It messes with your understanding of a zone of proximal development. There is at least one other example in *Mind and Society *I am sure there are many more. Its a general problem. The perezhivanie discussion revealed, if nothing else, that the term is promiscuously translated and used in a variety of poorly marked ways, a major outcome of which, it seems, is a cottage industry in clarifications, extensions, and all sorts of discussions about the right way to define the term. And apply it. This problem is endemic in the translation by Horsely Gantt of Luria's *Nature of Human Conflicts*.( Gantt is the same the guy who translated Pavlov -- yep the same guy who brought us conditioned reflex.). Particularly irksome is the variable way he translates oposredvovanie ( oposredsvovanie) so that the reader is left confused about a key concept of, as they say, cultural-historical psychology. To me its great to have real experts like Rene and Jaan Valsiner and many others providing more adequate translations and providing a far deeper understanding of the texts and their intellectual, social contexts than we had in the 1970's. But the problem of translation will never go away. So academics will have something to do, we can be sure. :-) mike On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy research: A > methodological framework. Boston: Sense. sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= > 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the > translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) > > > I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated > conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and > animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the > conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. > According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of Vygotsky's > Collected Works, > > In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent English > terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has joined in the > use of the term conditional reflex for the older conditioned reflex, both > in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By the time Watson adopted the > Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone for behaviorist psychology in the > 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been mis-translated "conditioned" (as a > Russian passive past participle), and the whole process was designated as > "conditioning" (see Boring, 1950). At mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) > suggested that "Pavlov meant that the occurrence of the reflex to a novel > cue was literally conditional [sic] upon certain operations" and observed > that "in contemporary American psychology ['conditioned' had] become > practically synonymous with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to > Vygotsky, 1993, pp. vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Apr 10 00:09:35 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 07:09:35 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion In-Reply-To: References: <1523260936467.33951@iped.uio.no>, Message-ID: <1523344175014.39908@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing the notes, David. I did not explain well: Ren? had not yet participated. His e-mail address was added as CC to the thread at the outset, but was dropped at some point, probably for having replied without "replaying to all". In case he was interested in actually participating, I wanted to make sure he was included and would not loose track. I like your reflections about the creative dimensions of citing and translating. May not be creativity indeed what distinguishes citing and paraphrasing from plain plagiarism? Yet, I wonder what a "voluntary" creativity would be, for, often, trying hard with an "end" in mind is what helps the least to be creative. But that takes the discussion into questions on what a "will" may be that manifests in/as creativity. Alfredo Jornet ________________________________ New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and intransitive dimensions" Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: 09 April 2018 23:54 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Cc: veer@fsw.leidenuniv.nl Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion Alfredo: In your note below you say that you reinserted an email response from Rene van der Veer, but I couldn't find any such attached. Anyway, here's a pdf of the two comments I wrote on the chapter, as requested. I recently did a study on "involuntary creativity" in children. The data was pretty straightforward (children trying to remember Hamlet, actually--quite similar to Peter Smagorinsky's data in the paper he circulated recently). But the theoretical background was, as usual, clear as mud to me. We know how "conditioned responses" arise: Pavlov demonstrated this in the laboratory, and Vygotsky theorized it using cultural history: the "response" as such is given by the hereditary endowment but the environment is manipulated in some way, as when humans go from hunting to herding, or from gathering to farming. We know much less precisely how the NEXT form of higher behavior, creativity and intelligent solutions to unprecedent problems, can arise, and it seems to me that one possiblity is that it arise precisely when children try to plagiarize and fail because of the semantic rather than lexicogrammatical or phonological nature of their linguistic memory. For example, last week I was teaching "How languages are learned" by Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada. The first chapter tells a funny little story about a five year old's birthday party. The children are drinking grape juice from long-stemmed glasses, and the parent, adultomorphizing a bit, raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a toast", to which all the other adults, and the children somewhat belatedly, respond by raising their long-stemmed glasses. A few minutes later, the birthday boy raises his glass and says "I'd like to propose a piece of bread." I probably got the anecdote wrong, and I am quite sure that Lantolf got it wrong when he used it in an article about ten years ago, but perhaps that's Hegel's point. Even if you could get a toast, or an anecdote, or a quote verbatim; even if you could translate perfectly from one language (e.g. English) into a highly cognate language (e.g. Dutch), the translation wouldn't and couldn't avoid involuntary creativity, because the interpersonal meaning has changed. Interpersonal meaning (or, if you like, sense) is made at all levels: sounding (phonology/graphology/punctuation), wording (lexicogrammar) and meaning (semantics). It's not just in tone and voice quality, or punctuation and style, although interpersonal meaning certainly is expressed at that level (commas are becoming largely a matter of style, and in the nineteenth century, the use of quotation marks was too).Interpersonal meaning is also expressed in the proportion of exclamatives, interrogatives, and declaratives you use (Vygotsky the teacher turns out to use a lot more exclamatives and more of what we would call "known answer questions" today than Vygotsky the writer). Our memory for the grammatical form of what people say to us is remarkably poor, and in some cases the grammatical mood is not even clear the first time it was said (Should. "I wonder what he meant by that" have a question mark or a full stop?) And of course, at the level of "pure" semantics (assuming that there is such a level) interpersonal meaning is encoded in your choice of audience: the one or the many, your students or posterity. What's interesting in Vygotsky is not simply that he quotes verbatim; it's also that he gets the quotes spectatucularly wrong in places (Thorndike, for example, becomes a progressive, holistic math educator, and G. Stanley Hall a humanist psychologist!). He translates, but hardly ever word for word, and always with his own volitionally creative goals in mind. The technique is really not that different from involuntary creativity--transposing utterances from one context to another--but the motives and aims and audience and hence sense certainly are. I sometimes think that in the era of machine translation--one that Halliday predicted in the 1950s--now lies in annotation, footnotes and reference lists, and it's really here that v der V and Z have done us a priceless service. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 5:02 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks Peter for following up on the Van der Veer / Zavershneva article > that you so kindly shared here. And sorry, David, that I have not yet been > able to find the time to address your thorough and developing reviews of > the article, which are, as usual, very insightful as well as felicitiously > debate-able. > > I did read the article, and, as Mike already notes, the first thing I > would say is that this should be a very welcome piece in that it adds a > really rich item to a growing number of works that help us situated > Vygotsky's legacy in its cultural and historical context. Specially welcome > are the clarifications concerning the multiple citations and paraphrasing, > some of which W-M Roth and others had flagged before. > > I am however not even close to literate enough on these topics so as to > add much, beyond re-stating that perhaps most important than finding out > about the "intentions" of the author may be testing out which research > avenues can be pursued by following the lines (not new, but still lines > that grow) drawn in chapter seven. > > But I wanted to reply to-reinsert Rene's e-mail, which had not been copied > in the last response. Please, unless Ren? would rather like to be dropped, > remember to "reply all" and not just hit the reply button when answering to > this thread. > I also wondered whether David would like to add (attached as pdf perhaps?) > his previous posts, which I thought raised good and well-informed questions. > > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of David Kellogg > Sent: 08 April 2018 01:58 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: sense and emotion > > Well, David's comments consisted of two parts. The first part was pretty > incoherent--I just objected that they hadn't read the chapter the way I > did, with an emphasis on what Halliday calls "logogenesis" as opposed to > phylogenesis and ontogenesis. After some reflection, I wrote something a > little better, in which I argued that the distinction between "phasal" and > "semantic" was key to the chapter. When I think back at what I wrote, > though, the first part is really reproaching them for not reading Halliday > and the second part for not reading Saussure. Obviously, the second part is > a little fairer than the first...but in a hundred years I daresay things > will be the other way around: Saussure will only be of historical interest, > but Halliday himself will be part of our own living history. > > I always wondered about that, Mike. In the preface to Mind in Society, it > says the first four chapters are from Tool and Sign, but the fourth chapter > is clearly from the end of Chapter Two of HDHMF. Vygotsky says: > > ???, ?. ????, ???? ?? ??????? ?????????????? ???????????, ????????? ???? > ???????????????? ?????? ? ?????? ????????, ?????????? ???? ??? ?????? > ??????, ???????? ??????????? ????, ?????? ???????????, ?? ????. > > So it's not about the "tongue" at all--it's about "language" and then about > "speech". And what's the difference? > > Here I think Peter's got a point. The difference between "znachenie" and > "smysl" is semantic. But semantics, according to Halliday, has a way of > "rising to the concrete"--that is, all the patterns, from lexicogrammar to > phonology to phonetics, can be semantically motivated one way or another. > So for example at the level of lexicogrammar, there are some words that are > closer to "smysl", because they are so embedded in the context of situation > (these are the ones favored in infant speech and early childhood, the > "this" and the "that" and the "there" and "here" and "it" and "the" and so > on, whose reference is immediate and constantly changing as a result). But > so many of these words, iin Englsh, begin with voiced interdental "th". > Why? > > Well, it's not just Tibetans and native Americans who point with their > lips, Henry! There is a fair amount of pointing with the tongue going on > here. But less trivially, I think you'll find that sense is linked to > VOWELS (as well as to intonation and stress) whle signification is carried > disproportionately in consonants. Because there is meaning being made at > every level, we can see, at every level, Vygotsky's distinction between > sense and signification (which is really identical to Voloshinov's between > "theme" and "meaning"). > > > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 8:32 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Hi again, Peter-- > > > > Inspired by your note, I read Rene and Ekaterina's article. It was great > to > > see the > > identification of sources of all of those LSV references. Tracking them > > down has eluded editors of LSV's writings over the years --Russian and > > non-Russian alike. All the work they have been doing, like the earlier > work > > with Jaan Valsiner, has enormously helped to provide a corrective to the > > shortcomings of *Mind in Society.* > > > > I tried to recover David's earlier comments on the logic of the chapter > > under discussion, but the xmca archive is down at the moment. When it is > > recoverable, > > it seems worth putting together with your comments for discussion > (assuming > > that folks are moving on from the discussion of the use of facebook for > > organizing > > and the perils/virtues of activism). > > > > mike > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 3:49 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > Peter- > > > > > > I have put of reading Rene's article, but will try to get it to the top > > of > > > the always-growing stack of "must read nows." > > > > > > Just a quick comment to say that the use of the term, tongue, with > > respect > > > to Dewey > > > is almost certainly a mistranslation of the term, ???? which in this > > > context should be translated as language. Another casualty of > collective > > > editing of the translator's work. > > > > > > mike > > > editing. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > > > > >> I had an opportunity to read the article by Rene van der Veer and > > >> colleague on the last few chapters of Thinking and Speech, and found > it > > >> interesting for a number of reasons. First, he does some historical > > work to > > >> argue that it was more a compilation of earlier work and ideas > borrowed > > >> heavily from other sources than an original culminating statement on > > human > > >> development, an issue obscured by editors who removed quotation marks > > from > > >> appropriated material. The ways in which Vygotsky as we now know him > was > > >> shaped by those who produced the volume is interesting in and of > itself. > > >> > > >> I can't say exactly how I came to what follows, but it was something > > that > > >> occurred to me throughout the article's discussion of meaning and > sense. > > >> Below, I'll paste in something I wrote nearly 20 years ago on this > > >> smysl/znachenie distinction, and I think I still believe what I wrote > > then. > > >> What struck me this time around is how smysl:sense has a deeply > > emotional > > >> foundation, consistent with LSV's insistence that cognition and affect > > >> can't be separated. This was the first time I ever saw how that > process > > >> might work. Emotion, as I'm thinking about it right now, produces the > > >> material through which ideas/thoughts take shape on their way to > > >> articulation via speech (or other mediational tool). > > >> > > >> [as an aside, I recently reviewed Mind in Society prior to using it > in a > > >> class I taught in Mexico, and was struck by the quote about how "the > > tongue > > >> is the tool of tools"....I'd forgotten the "tongue" part because I > > >> typically see this phrasing accorded to speech, not the more > > alliterative > > >> tongue. Very nice.] > > >> > > >> In any case, I posted Rene's article, so feel some obligation to > follow > > >> up with the group, and so am offering this notion, which I find > > >> interesting. Am I on the right trail? > > >> > > >> http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/RER/RER2001.pdf > > >> The Russian term smysl has been translated as sense (i.e., > unarticulated > > >> inner speech), while the term znachenie has been translated as meaning > > >> (i.e., the articulation of thought through a sign system such as > words). > > >> Vygotsky, however, viewed both smysl and znachenie as constituents of > > the > > >> meaningful whole. I next explain each of these two zones of meaning in > > >> greater detail. > > >> Smysl is the set of images and associations one makes > with a > > >> sign such as a word in the area of consciousness Vygotsky (1987) > called > > >> inner speech, that is, the abbreviated syntax and > > stream-of-consciousness > > >> properties of unarticulated, inchoate thought. Smysl corresponds to > what > > >> Rosenblatt (1978) refers to as the initial zone of meaning in a > reader's > > >> evocation, or what Gallas (2001) refers to as imagination. Rosenblatt > > >> describes this experience as > > >> > > >> a penumbra of "memories" of what has preceded, ready to be activated > by > > >> what follows, and providing the context from which further meaning > will > > be > > >> derived. Awareness-more or less explicit-of repetitions, echoes, > > >> resonances, repercussions, linkages, cumulative effects, contrasts, or > > >> surprises is the mnemonic matrix for the structuring of emotion, idea, > > >> situation, character, plot-in short, for the evocation of a work of > art. > > >> (pp. 57-58) > > >> > > >> Smysl is as yet unarticulated, being instead the storm > cloud > > >> of thought that produces the shower of words, to use Vygotsky's (1987) > > >> metaphor. One great limitation of the concept of smysl is that it > > cannot be > > >> empirically demonstrated, only inferred. Vygotsky's formulation of > inner > > >> speech came from his observations of egocentric speech in young > > children, > > >> which he theorized became internalized as inner speech. Once speech > (or > > >> another tool) is articulated and thus observable, it appears in the > > zone of > > >> meaning that is the shower of words (or other signs) that Vygotsky > calls > > >> znachenie. Znachenie, then, is the zone of meaning available in > > represented > > >> form, corresponding to the notion of a sign, regardless of modality. > > >> Because these two zones compose a meaningful whole, > > referring > > >> to znachenie as "meaning" can be misleading. I retain the translation > of > > >> sense for smysl: "the aggregate of all the psychological facts that > > arise > > >> in our consciousness as the result of the word. Sense is a dynamic, > > fluid, > > >> and complex formation which has several zones that vary in their > > stability" > > >> (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 275). For znachenie, I use articulation: > > >> > > >> It is the most stable, unified, and precise of these zones. In > different > > >> contexts, a word's sense changes. In contrast, [articulation] is a > > >> comparatively fixed and stable point, one that remains constant with > all > > >> the exchanges of the word's sense that are associated with its use in > > >> various contexts. (p. 275) > > >> > > >> > > > > > > > From smago@uga.edu Tue Apr 10 04:03:25 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 11:03:25 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I hope I'm not overloading the list with my own baggage, but since Mike mentioned the zpd and translation issues, I'll attach a forthcoming article on what I consider to be a mistranslation, or at least deceptive translation of zpd. I should admit that I don't speak Russian, but have read a lot about translation given how much I rely on them when claiming a Vygotskian perspective. At the same time, I do think that after nearly 30 years of reading in this vein, I more or less get what LSV was up to (and as Mike says, Van der Veer, Valsiner, and others have informed this understanding, along with others), and always thought that the zpd/scaffolding bundle didn't sound very cultural-historical. So the paper situates the zpd discussion in the context of LSV's larger project and relies on a different translation of "proximal" to read "next," which I find more consistent with his emphasis on long-term human development, not today's instruction producing tomorrow's independence. I assume that zpd is like thought and language: the first translation of the term got ossified in the profession's vocabulary and has been hard to dislodge, in spite of better (the 1987 Plenum, which Rene has written is itself highly problematic, yet which at least has a more accurate translation of thinking and speech) translations. But it's too easy for zpd to get reduced to short-term learning, as in the scaffolding metaphor, which Bruner developed based on the 1962 translation, generally considered these days to be too abridged and impressionistic by people who have read all 3 versions. Zone of next development (and Seth Chaiklin said that the Dutch translation is closer to "next" than "proximal" when we exchanged notes over the attached article) better captures what LSV was doing, broadly speaking. While I've got the floor....Mike has been a bit apologetic about his team's editorial liberties with Mind in Society, and many people have begun taking critical stances toward it. I think it's presentist to view it as questionable work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) The volume, as I understand it, was produced as an introductory, readable presentation of LSV's greatest hits to a new reading public. There was only the early Thought and Language to go on at the time in English. I think that introducing LSV by jumping into the deep end would have kept him obscure. The book's great success in getting a Vygotskian readership justifies the approach that the editors took at that time in the introduction of LSV to the West via English. It was the right decision at the time. 40 years later, the volume might appear to be over-edited, but hindsight, well, we all know about that, and hindsight can obscure the reasoning that motivated their decisions in the 1970s when Piaget ruled ed psych and cog psych was in ascendance. So I defend the volume, even if it is amenable to critique in 2018, because I'm not going to remove it from its cultural-historical setting. It got a lot of us reading LSV (though also, not to the editors' discredit, gave too many people a shortcut to understanding because its accessibility replaced the harder reading of Thinking and Speech and the rest of his oeuvre). I'll defend it on those grounds, and hope that others take a more historical view of its role in our own development of a Vygotskian conception of human development. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 8:11 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response David and Peter -- Impossible to hold the beginning of the conversation stable with such interesting, related topics piling up. As a feeble attempt to claw my way back to the beginning..... About conditional response & translation: I took my first psychology course with Celeste McCollough at Oberlin college in 1955. She is famous in psychology for the "McCollough effect" (a perceptual color aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation). But the class she taught us was Skinnerian behaviorism mingled with Pavlov. The term was referred to as a condition*ed* reflex, as it often is still today. I had a very difficult time learning to distinguish conditioned from unconditioned learning. CS- US - UCS in some sort of combination. Confusing to me anyway. The Russian term, uslovni ( ????????) as in "uslovni refleks" is, as Peter points out most sensibly translated as conditional. If you do not understand it in this way, you do not understand what Pavlov was claiming. Nor do you understand the difference between Pavlov and Skinner. So translation makes a difference. we started this part of the discussion with the example of *tongue* in the text. It is sort of doubly misleading. Firstly, before I saw the Russian text that David provided, I assumed that it was a mistranslation language. Nope. It was a mistranslation of rech (speech). At this point, we also lose track of the relationship between Dewey and Vygotsky. There was a time when LSV referred to what he was engaged in as a form of instrumental psychology. As much discussed, the ideas of the two men were similar in many ways. I published a discussion about the causes and consequences of mistranslating obuchenie as learning, not instruction. It messes with your understanding of a zone of proximal development. There is at least one other example in *Mind and Society *I am sure there are many more. Its a general problem. The perezhivanie discussion revealed, if nothing else, that the term is promiscuously translated and used in a variety of poorly marked ways, a major outcome of which, it seems, is a cottage industry in clarifications, extensions, and all sorts of discussions about the right way to define the term. And apply it. This problem is endemic in the translation by Horsely Gantt of Luria's *Nature of Human Conflicts*.( Gantt is the same the guy who translated Pavlov -- yep the same guy who brought us conditioned reflex.). Particularly irksome is the variable way he translates oposredvovanie ( oposredsvovanie) so that the reader is left confused about a key concept of, as they say, cultural-historical psychology. To me its great to have real experts like Rene and Jaan Valsiner and many others providing more adequate translations and providing a far deeper understanding of the texts and their intellectual, social contexts than we had in the 1970's. But the problem of translation will never go away. So academics will have something to do, we can be sure. :-) mike On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy > research: A methodological framework. Boston: Sense. sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= > 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the > translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) > > > I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated > conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and > animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the > conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. > According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of > Vygotsky's Collected Works, > > In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent English > terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has joined in > the use of the term conditional reflex for the older conditioned > reflex, both in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By the time Watson > adopted the Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone for behaviorist > psychology in the 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been mis-translated > "conditioned" (as a Russian passive past participle), and the whole > process was designated as "conditioning" (see Boring, 1950). At > mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) suggested that "Pavlov meant that > the occurrence of the reflex to a novel cue was literally conditional > [sic] upon certain operations" and observed that "in contemporary > American psychology ['conditioned' had] become practically synonymous > with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to Vygotsky, 1993, pp. > vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LCSI_2018.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 171906 bytes Desc: LCSI_2018.pdf Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180410/d4894873/attachment.pdf From mckinneydero@wisc.edu Tue Apr 10 06:37:30 2018 From: mckinneydero@wisc.edu (Maxine McKinney de Royston) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 13:37:30 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] STEM for whom CFP Message-ID: <74B6461C-E12E-4978-85D9-A89C8621DB5F@wisc.edu> Greetings all- Tesha Sengupta-Irving and I are co-editing a special issue of Cognition & Instruction titled, ?STEM Learning: For Whom and Toward What Ends?? Attached is a flier for the special issue, which links to details of the call also found here: http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/ed/hcgi-stem-learning. We?re hoping for a diverse and interdisciplinary set of submissions! Abstracts of no more than 500 words and 5 keywords are due May 1, 2018. Submissions can be sent to Dr. Maxine McKinney de Royston (mckinneydero@wisc.edu) and/or Dr. Tesha Sengupta-Irving (tesha.sengupta-irving@vanderbilt.edu) directly. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact either of us directly. Sincere Regards, Tesha Sengupta-Irving and Maxine McKinney de Royston Maxine McKinney de Royston Assistant Professor, Curriculum & Instruction University of Wisconsin- Madison @profm_de_r -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: STEM for whom CFP.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 16726 bytes Desc: STEM for whom CFP.pdf Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180410/bf13c5a6/attachment.pdf From hshonerd@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 09:26:42 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 10:26:42 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Peter, Kudos to you for your kudos to Mike! Translating across space and time is probably what we do all the time, just at a smaller scale. Edelsky: the remembered present. I personally have to credit David K. for being so patient with me about ZPD, when I was first wading in chat waters. David was talking with Seth Chalkin at the time. Now I see how Bruner got flak from David, though I was irritated by having one of my icons of cognitive psych pummeled. Maybe everyone gets forgiven in the end. Henry > On Apr 10, 2018, at 5:03 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > I hope I'm not overloading the list with my own baggage, but since Mike mentioned the zpd and translation issues, I'll attach a forthcoming article on what I consider to be a mistranslation, or at least deceptive translation of zpd. I should admit that I don't speak Russian, but have read a lot about translation given how much I rely on them when claiming a Vygotskian perspective. At the same time, I do think that after nearly 30 years of reading in this vein, I more or less get what LSV was up to (and as Mike says, Van der Veer, Valsiner, and others have informed this understanding, along with others), and always thought that the zpd/scaffolding bundle didn't sound very cultural-historical. So the paper situates the zpd discussion in the context of LSV's larger project and relies on a different translation of "proximal" to read "next," which I find more consistent with his emphasis on long-term human development, not today's instruction producing tomorrow's independence. > > I assume that zpd is like thought and language: the first translation of the term got ossified in the profession's vocabulary and has been hard to dislodge, in spite of better (the 1987 Plenum, which Rene has written is itself highly problematic, yet which at least has a more accurate translation of thinking and speech) translations. But it's too easy for zpd to get reduced to short-term learning, as in the scaffolding metaphor, which Bruner developed based on the 1962 translation, generally considered these days to be too abridged and impressionistic by people who have read all 3 versions. Zone of next development (and Seth Chaiklin said that the Dutch translation is closer to "next" than "proximal" when we exchanged notes over the attached article) better captures what LSV was doing, broadly speaking. > > While I've got the floor....Mike has been a bit apologetic about his team's editorial liberties with Mind in Society, and many people have begun taking critical stances toward it. I think it's presentist to view it as questionable work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_analysis) > > The volume, as I understand it, was produced as an introductory, readable presentation of LSV's greatest hits to a new reading public. There was only the early Thought and Language to go on at the time in English. I think that introducing LSV by jumping into the deep end would have kept him obscure. The book's great success in getting a Vygotskian readership justifies the approach that the editors took at that time in the introduction of LSV to the West via English. It was the right decision at the time. 40 years later, the volume might appear to be over-edited, but hindsight, well, we all know about that, and hindsight can obscure the reasoning that motivated their decisions in the 1970s when Piaget ruled ed psych and cog psych was in ascendance. > > So I defend the volume, even if it is amenable to critique in 2018, because I'm not going to remove it from its cultural-historical setting. It got a lot of us reading LSV (though also, not to the editors' discredit, gave too many people a shortcut to understanding because its accessibility replaced the harder reading of Thinking and Speech and the rest of his oeuvre). I'll defend it on those grounds, and hope that others take a more historical view of its role in our own development of a Vygotskian conception of human development. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 8:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response > > David and Peter -- > > Impossible to hold the beginning of the conversation stable with such interesting, related topics piling up. As a feeble attempt to claw my way back to the beginning..... > > About conditional response & translation: > > I took my first psychology course with Celeste McCollough at Oberlin college in 1955. She is famous in psychology for the "McCollough effect" (a perceptual color aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation). But the class she taught us was Skinnerian behaviorism mingled with Pavlov. The term was referred to as a condition*ed* reflex, as it often is still today. I had a very difficult time learning to distinguish conditioned from unconditioned learning. CS- US - UCS in some sort of combination. Confusing to me anyway. > > The Russian term, uslovni ( ????????) as in "uslovni refleks" is, as Peter points out most sensibly translated as conditional. If you do not understand it in this way, you do not understand what Pavlov was claiming. Nor do you understand the difference between Pavlov and Skinner. So translation makes a difference. > > we started this part of the discussion with the example of *tongue* in the text. It is sort of doubly misleading. Firstly, before I saw the Russian text that David provided, I assumed that it was a mistranslation language. > Nope. It was a mistranslation of rech (speech). > > At this point, we also lose track of the relationship between Dewey and Vygotsky. There was a time when LSV referred to what he was engaged in as a form of instrumental psychology. As much discussed, the ideas of the two men were similar in many ways. > > I published a discussion about the causes and consequences of mistranslating obuchenie as learning, not instruction. It messes with your understanding of a zone of proximal development. > > There is at least one other example in *Mind and Society *I am sure there are many more. > > Its a general problem. The perezhivanie discussion revealed, if nothing else, that the term is promiscuously translated and used in a variety of poorly marked ways, a major outcome of which, it seems, is a cottage industry in clarifications, extensions, and all sorts of discussions about the right way to define the term. And apply it. > > This problem is endemic in the translation by Horsely Gantt of Luria's *Nature of Human Conflicts*.( Gantt is the same the guy who translated Pavlov -- yep the same guy who brought us conditioned reflex.). Particularly irksome is the variable way he translates oposredvovanie ( oposredsvovanie) so that the reader is left confused about a key concept of, as they say, cultural-historical psychology. > > To me its great to have real experts like Rene and Jaan Valsiner and many others providing more adequate translations and providing a far deeper understanding of the texts and their intellectual, social contexts than we had in the 1970's. > > But the problem of translation will never go away. So academics will have something to do, we can be sure. > > :-) > mike > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > >> I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy >> research: A methodological framework. Boston: Sense.> sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= >> 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the >> translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) >> >> >> I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated >> conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and >> animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the >> conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. >> According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of >> Vygotsky's Collected Works, >> >> In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent English >> terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has joined in >> the use of the term conditional reflex for the older conditioned >> reflex, both in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By the time Watson >> adopted the Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone for behaviorist >> psychology in the 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been mis-translated >> "conditioned" (as a Russian passive past participle), and the whole >> process was designated as "conditioning" (see Boring, 1950). At >> mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) suggested that "Pavlov meant that >> the occurrence of the reflex to a novel cue was literally conditional >> [sic] upon certain operations" and observed that "in contemporary >> American psychology ['conditioned' had] become practically synonymous >> with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to Vygotsky, 1993, pp. >> vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) >> >> > From smago@uga.edu Tue Apr 10 09:42:46 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:42:46 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks, and just to correct myself on my 5AM post when my brain was lagging behind my fingers, Seth is Danish, not Dutch. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 12:27 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response Peter, Kudos to you for your kudos to Mike! Translating across space and time is probably what we do all the time, just at a smaller scale. Edelsky: the remembered present. I personally have to credit David K. for being so patient with me about ZPD, when I was first wading in chat waters. David was talking with Seth Chalkin at the time. Now I see how Bruner got flak from David, though I was irritated by having one of my icons of cognitive psych pummeled. Maybe everyone gets forgiven in the end. Henry > On Apr 10, 2018, at 5:03 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > I hope I'm not overloading the list with my own baggage, but since Mike mentioned the zpd and translation issues, I'll attach a forthcoming article on what I consider to be a mistranslation, or at least deceptive translation of zpd. I should admit that I don't speak Russian, but have read a lot about translation given how much I rely on them when claiming a Vygotskian perspective. At the same time, I do think that after nearly 30 years of reading in this vein, I more or less get what LSV was up to (and as Mike says, Van der Veer, Valsiner, and others have informed this understanding, along with others), and always thought that the zpd/scaffolding bundle didn't sound very cultural-historical. So the paper situates the zpd discussion in the context of LSV's larger project and relies on a different translation of "proximal" to read "next," which I find more consistent with his emphasis on long-term human development, not today's instruction producing tomorrow's independence. > > I assume that zpd is like thought and language: the first translation of the term got ossified in the profession's vocabulary and has been hard to dislodge, in spite of better (the 1987 Plenum, which Rene has written is itself highly problematic, yet which at least has a more accurate translation of thinking and speech) translations. But it's too easy for zpd to get reduced to short-term learning, as in the scaffolding metaphor, which Bruner developed based on the 1962 translation, generally considered these days to be too abridged and impressionistic by people who have read all 3 versions. Zone of next development (and Seth Chaiklin said that the Dutch translation is closer to "next" than "proximal" when we exchanged notes over the attached article) better captures what LSV was doing, broadly speaking. > > While I've got the floor....Mike has been a bit apologetic about his > team's editorial liberties with Mind in Society, and many people have > begun taking critical stances toward it. I think it's presentist to > view it as questionable work. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_anal > ysis) > > The volume, as I understand it, was produced as an introductory, readable presentation of LSV's greatest hits to a new reading public. There was only the early Thought and Language to go on at the time in English. I think that introducing LSV by jumping into the deep end would have kept him obscure. The book's great success in getting a Vygotskian readership justifies the approach that the editors took at that time in the introduction of LSV to the West via English. It was the right decision at the time. 40 years later, the volume might appear to be over-edited, but hindsight, well, we all know about that, and hindsight can obscure the reasoning that motivated their decisions in the 1970s when Piaget ruled ed psych and cog psych was in ascendance. > > So I defend the volume, even if it is amenable to critique in 2018, because I'm not going to remove it from its cultural-historical setting. It got a lot of us reading LSV (though also, not to the editors' discredit, gave too many people a shortcut to understanding because its accessibility replaced the harder reading of Thinking and Speech and the rest of his oeuvre). I'll defend it on those grounds, and hope that others take a more historical view of its role in our own development of a Vygotskian conception of human development. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 8:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response > > David and Peter -- > > Impossible to hold the beginning of the conversation stable with such interesting, related topics piling up. As a feeble attempt to claw my way back to the beginning..... > > About conditional response & translation: > > I took my first psychology course with Celeste McCollough at Oberlin college in 1955. She is famous in psychology for the "McCollough effect" (a perceptual color aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation). But the class she taught us was Skinnerian behaviorism mingled with Pavlov. The term was referred to as a condition*ed* reflex, as it often is still today. I had a very difficult time learning to distinguish conditioned from unconditioned learning. CS- US - UCS in some sort of combination. Confusing to me anyway. > > The Russian term, uslovni ( ????????) as in "uslovni refleks" is, as Peter points out most sensibly translated as conditional. If you do not understand it in this way, you do not understand what Pavlov was claiming. Nor do you understand the difference between Pavlov and Skinner. So translation makes a difference. > > we started this part of the discussion with the example of *tongue* in the text. It is sort of doubly misleading. Firstly, before I saw the Russian text that David provided, I assumed that it was a mistranslation language. > Nope. It was a mistranslation of rech (speech). > > At this point, we also lose track of the relationship between Dewey and Vygotsky. There was a time when LSV referred to what he was engaged in as a form of instrumental psychology. As much discussed, the ideas of the two men were similar in many ways. > > I published a discussion about the causes and consequences of mistranslating obuchenie as learning, not instruction. It messes with your understanding of a zone of proximal development. > > There is at least one other example in *Mind and Society *I am sure there are many more. > > Its a general problem. The perezhivanie discussion revealed, if nothing else, that the term is promiscuously translated and used in a variety of poorly marked ways, a major outcome of which, it seems, is a cottage industry in clarifications, extensions, and all sorts of discussions about the right way to define the term. And apply it. > > This problem is endemic in the translation by Horsely Gantt of Luria's *Nature of Human Conflicts*.( Gantt is the same the guy who translated Pavlov -- yep the same guy who brought us conditioned reflex.). Particularly irksome is the variable way he translates oposredvovanie ( oposredsvovanie) so that the reader is left confused about a key concept of, as they say, cultural-historical psychology. > > To me its great to have real experts like Rene and Jaan Valsiner and many others providing more adequate translations and providing a far deeper understanding of the texts and their intellectual, social contexts than we had in the 1970's. > > But the problem of translation will never go away. So academics will have something to do, we can be sure. > > :-) > mike > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > >> I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy >> research: A methodological framework. Boston: Sense.> sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= >> 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the >> translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) >> >> >> I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated >> conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and >> animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the >> conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. >> According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of >> Vygotsky's Collected Works, >> >> In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent >> English terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has >> joined in the use of the term conditional reflex for the older >> conditioned reflex, both in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By >> the time Watson adopted the Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone >> for behaviorist psychology in the 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been >> mis-translated "conditioned" (as a Russian passive past participle), >> and the whole process was designated as "conditioning" (see Boring, >> 1950). At mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) suggested that "Pavlov >> meant that the occurrence of the reflex to a novel cue was literally >> conditional [sic] upon certain operations" and observed that "in >> contemporary American psychology ['conditioned' had] become >> practically synonymous with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to Vygotsky, 1993, pp. >> vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) >> >> > From hshonerd@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 10:34:06 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 11:34:06 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Touche: I misspelled Seth?s name. It?s Chalklin. :-) > On Apr 10, 2018, at 10:42 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > Thanks, and just to correct myself on my 5AM post when my brain was lagging behind my fingers, Seth is Danish, not Dutch. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2018 12:27 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response > > Peter, > Kudos to you for your kudos to Mike! Translating across space and time is probably what we do all the time, just at a smaller scale. Edelsky: the remembered present. I personally have to credit David K. for being so patient with me about ZPD, when I was first wading in chat waters. David was talking with Seth Chalkin at the time. Now I see how Bruner got flak from David, though I was irritated by having one of my icons of cognitive psych pummeled. Maybe everyone gets forgiven in the end. > Henry > >> On Apr 10, 2018, at 5:03 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: >> >> I hope I'm not overloading the list with my own baggage, but since Mike mentioned the zpd and translation issues, I'll attach a forthcoming article on what I consider to be a mistranslation, or at least deceptive translation of zpd. I should admit that I don't speak Russian, but have read a lot about translation given how much I rely on them when claiming a Vygotskian perspective. At the same time, I do think that after nearly 30 years of reading in this vein, I more or less get what LSV was up to (and as Mike says, Van der Veer, Valsiner, and others have informed this understanding, along with others), and always thought that the zpd/scaffolding bundle didn't sound very cultural-historical. So the paper situates the zpd discussion in the context of LSV's larger project and relies on a different translation of "proximal" to read "next," which I find more consistent with his emphasis on long-term human development, not today's instruction producing tomorrow's independence. >> >> I assume that zpd is like thought and language: the first translation of the term got ossified in the profession's vocabulary and has been hard to dislodge, in spite of better (the 1987 Plenum, which Rene has written is itself highly problematic, yet which at least has a more accurate translation of thinking and speech) translations. But it's too easy for zpd to get reduced to short-term learning, as in the scaffolding metaphor, which Bruner developed based on the 1962 translation, generally considered these days to be too abridged and impressionistic by people who have read all 3 versions. Zone of next development (and Seth Chaiklin said that the Dutch translation is closer to "next" than "proximal" when we exchanged notes over the attached article) better captures what LSV was doing, broadly speaking. >> >> While I've got the floor....Mike has been a bit apologetic about his >> team's editorial liberties with Mind in Society, and many people have >> begun taking critical stances toward it. I think it's presentist to >> view it as questionable work. >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(literary_and_historical_anal >> ysis) >> >> The volume, as I understand it, was produced as an introductory, readable presentation of LSV's greatest hits to a new reading public. There was only the early Thought and Language to go on at the time in English. I think that introducing LSV by jumping into the deep end would have kept him obscure. The book's great success in getting a Vygotskian readership justifies the approach that the editors took at that time in the introduction of LSV to the West via English. It was the right decision at the time. 40 years later, the volume might appear to be over-edited, but hindsight, well, we all know about that, and hindsight can obscure the reasoning that motivated their decisions in the 1970s when Piaget ruled ed psych and cog psych was in ascendance. >> >> So I defend the volume, even if it is amenable to critique in 2018, because I'm not going to remove it from its cultural-historical setting. It got a lot of us reading LSV (though also, not to the editors' discredit, gave too many people a shortcut to understanding because its accessibility replaced the harder reading of Thinking and Speech and the rest of his oeuvre). I'll defend it on those grounds, and hope that others take a more historical view of its role in our own development of a Vygotskian conception of human development. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >> Sent: Monday, April 9, 2018 8:11 PM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: conditional response >> >> David and Peter -- >> >> Impossible to hold the beginning of the conversation stable with such interesting, related topics piling up. As a feeble attempt to claw my way back to the beginning..... >> >> About conditional response & translation: >> >> I took my first psychology course with Celeste McCollough at Oberlin college in 1955. She is famous in psychology for the "McCollough effect" (a perceptual color aftereffect that is contingent on pattern orientation). But the class she taught us was Skinnerian behaviorism mingled with Pavlov. The term was referred to as a condition*ed* reflex, as it often is still today. I had a very difficult time learning to distinguish conditioned from unconditioned learning. CS- US - UCS in some sort of combination. Confusing to me anyway. >> >> The Russian term, uslovni ( ????????) as in "uslovni refleks" is, as Peter points out most sensibly translated as conditional. If you do not understand it in this way, you do not understand what Pavlov was claiming. Nor do you understand the difference between Pavlov and Skinner. So translation makes a difference. >> >> we started this part of the discussion with the example of *tongue* in the text. It is sort of doubly misleading. Firstly, before I saw the Russian text that David provided, I assumed that it was a mistranslation language. >> Nope. It was a mistranslation of rech (speech). >> >> At this point, we also lose track of the relationship between Dewey and Vygotsky. There was a time when LSV referred to what he was engaged in as a form of instrumental psychology. As much discussed, the ideas of the two men were similar in many ways. >> >> I published a discussion about the causes and consequences of mistranslating obuchenie as learning, not instruction. It messes with your understanding of a zone of proximal development. >> >> There is at least one other example in *Mind and Society *I am sure there are many more. >> >> Its a general problem. The perezhivanie discussion revealed, if nothing else, that the term is promiscuously translated and used in a variety of poorly marked ways, a major outcome of which, it seems, is a cottage industry in clarifications, extensions, and all sorts of discussions about the right way to define the term. And apply it. >> >> This problem is endemic in the translation by Horsely Gantt of Luria's *Nature of Human Conflicts*.( Gantt is the same the guy who translated Pavlov -- yep the same guy who brought us conditioned reflex.). Particularly irksome is the variable way he translates oposredvovanie ( oposredsvovanie) so that the reader is left confused about a key concept of, as they say, cultural-historical psychology. >> >> To me its great to have real experts like Rene and Jaan Valsiner and many others providing more adequate translations and providing a far deeper understanding of the texts and their intellectual, social contexts than we had in the 1970's. >> >> But the problem of translation will never go away. So academics will have something to do, we can be sure. >> >> :-) >> mike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 3:58 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: >> >>> I wrote this in Smagorinsky, P. (2011). Vygotsky and literacy >>> research: A methodological framework. Boston: Sense.>> sensepublishers.com/product_info.php?products_id=1374&osCsid= >>> 388e4357ae448e518709d4a68ffd2e18> I think Knox might have been the >>> translator (maybe Knox and Stephens?) >>> >>> >>> I use conditional response rather than the incorrectly translated >>> conditioned response to account for Pavlov's finding that people and >>> animals-most famously, dogs-respond to stimuli in relation to the >>> conditions that have surrounded their prior responses to similar stimuli. >>> According to the author of the uncredited forward to Volume 2 of >>> Vygotsky's Collected Works, >>> >>> In the interest of contributing to the formation of a coherent >>> English terminology for Russian psychological texts, this series has >>> joined in the use of the term conditional reflex for the older >>> conditioned reflex, both in Volume 1 and in the present volume. By >>> the time Watson adopted the Pavlovian formulation as a cornerstone >>> for behaviorist psychology in the 1910s, Pavlov's uslovnyi had been >>> mis-translated "conditioned" (as a Russian passive past participle), >>> and the whole process was designated as "conditioning" (see Boring, >>> 1950). At mid-century, however, Osgood (1953) suggested that "Pavlov >>> meant that the occurrence of the reflex to a novel cue was literally >>> conditional [sic] upon certain operations" and observed that "in >>> contemporary American psychology ['conditioned' had] become >>> practically synonymous with 'learned.'" (in the unattributed Foreword to Vygotsky, 1993, pp. >>> vii-viii; emphasis in original; [sic] in original) >>> >>> >> > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 10 11:02:52 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 11:02:52 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research In-Reply-To: <20180410160554984725471@davidpublishing.com> References: <20180410160554984725471@davidpublishing.com> Message-ID: Yet another venue to publish in. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: linguist@davidpublishing.com Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 1:05 AM Subject: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research To: lchcmike ? ? *US-China Foreign Language Sino-US English Teaching * DOI: 10.17265/1539-8080 DOI: 10.17265/1539-8072 ISSN 1539-8080 (Print) ISSN 1539-8072 (Print) ISSN 1935-9667 (Online) ISSN 1935-9675 (Online) *Call for Papers or Books* Dear Mike Cole These are *US-China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching*, the professional journals published across the United States by David Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, USA. We have learnt the abstract named: Expansive learning in social movements at*?* *5th International ISCAR Congress**?*. We are very interested in your research field. If the paper mentioned has not been published in other journals and you have the idea of making our journal as a vehicle for your research interests, please send us the English version of your paper in MS word format. And if the paper has been published, all your other original and unpublished papers are also welcome. As an American academic publishing group, we want to invite some people to be our reviewers or become our editorial board members. If you are interested in our journal, please send us your CV. Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. Thank you for your reply. Best regards, Betty Editorial Office US-China Foreign Language, ISSN1539-8080, USA Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN1539-8072, USA David Publishing Company 616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-4876, Valley Cottage, NY 10989, USA E-mail: *linguist@davidpublishing.org *, us2003language@hotmail.com*,* linguist@davidpublishing.com Tel: 1-323-9847526, 1-323-410-1082; Fax: 1-323-9847374, 1-323-9080457 *Description* *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching* are monthly professional academic journals, are striving to provide the best platform for researchers and scholars worldwide to exchange their latest findings and results. There is an English version for our journals and your contribution to our journals would be very much welcome! Current columns involve Literary Criticism, Translation Studies, Linguistics Research, English Teaching, and Intercultural Studies, etc. *Publication Ethics and Malpractice* *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching *commit to uphold highest publication ethics and malpractice statements. All the authors submitting their works should sign our copy right agreement states our publication policy. *Indexing Partners* 1. Google Scholar 2. Turkish Education Index 3. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center,Inc.), USA 4. Polish Scholarly Bibliography 5. LLBA database of CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts), USA 6. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory 7. Chinese Electronic Periodical Service (CEPS), Airiti Inc., Taiwan 8. Chinese Cultural University Library, Taiwan 9. Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R.C. 10. CNKI, P.R.C. 11. WorldCat 12. Electronic Journals Library 13. Scholar Steer 14. InfoBase Index 15. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine 16. University of Southern Denmark Library 17. University of Saskatchewan Library 18. Academic Keys 19. New Jour 20. SJournal Index *Information for authors* 1. The manuscript should be original, and has not been published previously. 2. Manuscripts may be 3000-8000 words or longer if approved by the editor, including an abstract, texts, tables, footnotes, appendixes, and references. All of these must be written in APA format. The title should not be exceeding 15 words, and abstract should not be exceeding 200 words. 3-5 keywords or key phrases are required. 3. The manuscript should be in MS Word format, submitted as an email attachment to our email address. 4. Authors of the articles being accepted are required to sign the Transfer of Copyright Agreement form. 5. The paper will not only be published online, but also in hard copy. *Peer review policy * *US- China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching* are peer review journals. All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and refereeing by at least two anonymous referees. The review process usually takes 1-3 weeks. *Submission of manuscript* All manuscripts submitted will be considered for publication. 1. Submit by email attachment to: *linguist@davidpublishing.org *, linguist@davidpublishing.com, us2003language@hotmail.com. 2. Submit by our our automatic paper submission systems: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: QQ_?201512031618(04-10-16-05-36)(1).png Type: image/png Size: 721 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180410/d9059944/attachment.png From dkellogg60@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 13:55:34 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 05:55:34 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research In-Reply-To: References: <20180410160554984725471@davidpublishing.com> Message-ID: Mike, this looks like vanity publishing to me. They obviously know nothing about your work, or even about Engestrom's, which they mistakenly attributed to you. The website says they were originally the US China Business review, and they don't seem to have a chosen field or discipline of any kind. Publishing in China, and in outlets connected to China, is very attractive because of the huge press run (a friend of mine was disappoined with her initial press run of fifty thousand copies!). But it usually means knowing somebody somewhere. There are some new John Benjamins journals concerned with second language teaching in China and with the teaching of Chinese, some of which are indexed at a faily low level. They also have some older, high level indexed journals, including one that is SSCI/A&HCI, but they mostly publish descriptive linguistics. . https://www.benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/current David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 3:02 AM, mike cole wrote: > Yet another venue to publish in. > mike > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: linguist@davidpublishing.com > Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 1:05 AM > Subject: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research > To: lchcmike > > > ? ? > > *US-China Foreign Language Sino-US English > Teaching * > DOI: 10.17265/1539-8080 > DOI: 10.17265/1539-8072 > > ISSN 1539-8080 (Print) > ISSN 1539-8072 (Print) > ISSN 1935-9667 (Online) > ISSN 1935-9675 (Online) > > > *Call for Papers or Books* > > Dear Mike Cole > > These are *US-China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching*, the > professional journals published across the United States by David > Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, USA. We have learnt the abstract > > named: Expansive learning in social movements at*?* > *5th International ISCAR Congress**?*. We are very interested in your > research > field. If the paper mentioned has not been published in other journals and > you have the idea of making our journal as a vehicle for your research > interests, please send us the English version of your paper in MS word > format. And if the paper has been published, all your other original and > unpublished papers are also welcome. > > > > As an American academic publishing group, we want to invite some people to > be our reviewers or become our editorial board members. If you are > interested in our journal, please send us your CV. > > Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. > Thank you for your reply. > > > Best regards, > > > > Betty > > Editorial Office > > US-China Foreign Language, ISSN1539-8080, USA > > Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN1539-8072, USA > > David Publishing Company > > 616 > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > Corporate > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > Way, > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > Suite > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > 2-4876, Valley > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > Cottage, > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > NY > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > 10989, > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > USA > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > E-mail: *linguist@davidpublishing.org *, > us2003language@hotmail.com*,* linguist@davidpublishing.com > > Tel: 1-323-9847526, 1-323-410-1082; Fax: 1-323-9847374, 1-323-9080457 > > > *Description* > > *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching* are monthly > professional academic journals, are striving to provide the best platform > for researchers and scholars worldwide to exchange their latest findings > and results. There is an English version for our journals and your > contribution to our journals would be very much welcome! Current columns > involve Literary Criticism, Translation Studies, Linguistics Research, > English Teaching, and Intercultural Studies, etc. > > *Publication Ethics and Malpractice* > > *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching *commit to uphold > highest publication ethics and malpractice statements. All the authors > submitting their works should sign our copy right agreement states our > publication policy. > > > > *Indexing Partners* > 1. Google Scholar > 2. Turkish Education Index > 3. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center,Inc.), USA > 4. Polish Scholarly Bibliography > 5. LLBA database of CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts), USA > 6. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory > 7. Chinese Electronic Periodical Service (CEPS), Airiti Inc., Taiwan > 8. Chinese Cultural University Library, Taiwan > 9. Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, > P.R.C. > 10. CNKI, P.R.C. > 11. WorldCat > 12. Electronic Journals Library > 13. Scholar Steer > 14. InfoBase Index > 15. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine > 16. University of Southern Denmark Library > 17. University of Saskatchewan Library > 18. Academic Keys > 19. New Jour > 20. SJournal Index > > *Information for authors* > 1. The manuscript should be original, and has not been published > previously. > > 2. Manuscripts may be 3000-8000 words or longer if approved by the > editor, including an abstract, texts, tables, footnotes, appendixes, and > references. All of these must be written in APA format. The title should > not be exceeding 15 words, and abstract should not be exceeding 200 words. > 3-5 keywords or key phrases are required. > > 3. The manuscript should be in MS Word format, submitted as an email > attachment to our email address. > > 4. Authors of the articles being accepted are required to sign the > Transfer of Copyright Agreement form. > > 5. The paper will not only be published online, but also in hard copy. > > > > *Peer review policy * > > *US- China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching* are peer review > journals. All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer > review, based on initial editor screening and refereeing by at least two > > anonymous referees. The review process usually takes 1-3 weeks. > > > > *Submission of manuscript* > > All manuscripts submitted will be considered for publication. > > 1. Submit by email attachment to: *linguist@davidpublishing.org > *, linguist@davidpublishing.com, > us2003language@hotmail.com. > > 2. Submit by our our automatic paper submission systems: > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 10 14:59:36 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 14:59:36 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research In-Reply-To: References: <20180410160554984725471@davidpublishing.com> Message-ID: Thanks for checking it out, David. I thought maybe it would useful to those struggling to find some sunlight in an unfriendly academic labor market. mike On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 1:55 PM, David Kellogg wrote: > Mike, this looks like vanity publishing to me. They obviously know nothing > about your work, or even about Engestrom's, which they mistakenly > attributed to you. The website says they were originally the US China > Business review, and they don't seem to have a chosen field or discipline > of any kind. > > Publishing in China, and in outlets connected to China, is very attractive > because of the huge press run (a friend of mine was disappoined with her > initial press run of fifty thousand copies!). But it usually means knowing > somebody somewhere. > > There are some new John Benjamins journals concerned with second language > teaching in China and with the teaching of Chinese, some of which are > indexed at a faily low level. They also have some older, high level indexed > journals, including one that is SSCI/A&HCI, but they mostly publish > descriptive linguistics. . > > https://www.benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/current > > > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 3:02 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Yet another venue to publish in. > > mike > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > From: linguist@davidpublishing.com > > Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 1:05 AM > > Subject: Special Issue on Cultural-historical Research > > To: lchcmike > > > > > > ? ? > > > > *US-China Foreign Language Sino-US English > > Teaching * > > DOI: 10.17265/1539-8080 > > DOI: 10.17265/1539-8072 > > > > ISSN 1539-8080 (Print) > > ISSN 1539-8072 (Print) > > ISSN 1935-9667 (Online) > > ISSN 1935-9675 (Online) > > > > > > *Call for Papers or Books* > > > > Dear Mike Cole > > > > These are *US-China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching*, the > > professional journals published across the United States by David > > Publishing Company, Chicago, IL, USA. We have learnt the abstract > > > > named: Expansive learning in social movements at*?* > > *5th International ISCAR Congress**?*. We are very interested in your > > research > > field. If the paper mentioned has not been published in other journals > and > > you have the idea of making our journal as a vehicle for your research > > interests, please send us the English version of your paper in MS word > > format. And if the paper has been published, all your other original and > > unpublished papers are also welcome. > > > > > > > > As an American academic publishing group, we want to invite some people > to > > be our reviewers or become our editorial board members. If you are > > interested in our journal, please send us your CV. > > > > Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact > us. > > Thank you for your reply. > > > > > > Best regards, > > > > > > > > Betty > > > > Editorial Office > > > > US-China Foreign Language, ISSN1539-8080, USA > > > > Sino-US English Teaching, ISSN1539-8072, USA > > > > David Publishing Company > > > > 616 > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > Corporate > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > Way, > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > Suite > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > 2-4876, Valley > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > Cottage, > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > NY > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > 10989, > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > USA > > > 4876,+Valley+Cottage,+NY+10989,+USA&entry=gmail&source=g> > > > > E-mail: *linguist@davidpublishing.org *, > > us2003language@hotmail.com*,* linguist@davidpublishing.com > > > > Tel: 1-323-9847526, 1-323-410-1082; Fax: 1-323-9847374, 1-323-9080457 > > > > > > *Description* > > > > *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching* are monthly > > professional academic journals, are striving to provide the best platform > > for researchers and scholars worldwide to exchange their latest findings > > and results. There is an English version for our journals and your > > contribution to our journals would be very much welcome! Current columns > > involve Literary Criticism, Translation Studies, Linguistics Research, > > English Teaching, and Intercultural Studies, etc. > > > > *Publication Ethics and Malpractice* > > > > *US-China Foreign Language *and *Sino-US English Teaching *commit to > uphold > > highest publication ethics and malpractice statements. All the authors > > submitting their works should sign our copy right agreement states our > > publication policy. > > > > > > > > *Indexing Partners* > > 1. Google Scholar > > 2. Turkish Education Index > > 3. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center,Inc.), USA > > 4. Polish Scholarly Bibliography > > 5. LLBA database of CSA (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts), USA > > 6. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory > > 7. Chinese Electronic Periodical Service (CEPS), Airiti Inc., Taiwan > > 8. Chinese Cultural University Library, Taiwan > > 9. Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, > > P.R.C. > > 10. CNKI, P.R.C. > > 11. WorldCat > > 12. Electronic Journals Library > > 13. Scholar Steer > > 14. InfoBase Index > > 15. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine > > 16. University of Southern Denmark Library > > 17. University of Saskatchewan Library > > 18. Academic Keys > > 19. New Jour > > 20. SJournal Index > > > > *Information for authors* > > 1. The manuscript should be original, and has not been published > > previously. > > > > 2. Manuscripts may be 3000-8000 words or longer if approved by the > > editor, including an abstract, texts, tables, footnotes, appendixes, and > > references. All of these must be written in APA format. The title should > > not be exceeding 15 words, and abstract should not be exceeding 200 > words. > > 3-5 keywords or key phrases are required. > > > > 3. The manuscript should be in MS Word format, submitted as an email > > attachment to our email address. > > > > 4. Authors of the articles being accepted are required to sign the > > Transfer of Copyright Agreement form. > > > > 5. The paper will not only be published online, but also in hard > copy. > > > > > > > > *Peer review policy * > > > > *US- China Foreign Language* and *Sino-US English Teaching* are peer > review > > journals. All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer > > review, based on initial editor screening and refereeing by at least two > > > > anonymous referees. The review process usually takes 1-3 weeks. > > > > > > > > *Submission of manuscript* > > > > All manuscripts submitted will be considered for publication. > > > > 1. Submit by email attachment to: *linguist@davidpublishing.org > > *, linguist@davidpublishing.com, > > us2003language@hotmail.com. > > > > 2. Submit by our our automatic paper submission systems: > > > > > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 17:55:16 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 10:55:16 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: hi Mike Cole, I've just read chs. 7 and 11 of LCHC. I agree that issues discussed there are still relevant, initially - fun / academic balance - the overwhelming impulse for kids to play games (and how to evaluate those games) always raises that issue sharply (other balances need to be addressed too - the issue of the dangers associated with computer communications and what to do about that - porn, cyberbullying etc.) - the pen pal activity is one that I have done in the past but forgot about - I think it has potential for remote Australians esp given that many urban Private schools go out of their way to cultivate an indigenous connection these days I'll try to work on a more comprehensive draft over the next day or so. Yes, I'm familiar with Seymour's work and Scratch. Also Brian Harvey wrote an important critique of Mitch Resnick's logo decentralisation thesis (Logo: Capitalist Tool?) https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/capitalist.html. I see all of Brian's work as important https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/?_ga=2.114682821.374017054.1523407499-1495565323.1520672862 wrt socially relevant computing thanks for the valuable link On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 10:38 AM, mike cole wrote: > Hi Bill -- I am mindful that i have some responses owed in the conversation > about Vygotsky's chapter, and am struggling to find time there is so much > to discuss). > > Michael Roth is a frequent contributor to xmca. And the Spinoza-Vygotsky > relationship is hoth these days. Seems likely has has an article that would > give people quick > access. And, the literature on the implementations of the one-lap top > experiment is easily accessible with a google search. The Appiah looks > really interesting.... So there is plentyh of overlap of interest there. > > I come from an earlier generation where there was a different mashup of > Vygotsky and cultural context. The big deal back then was "The New > Mathematics." And later, the potential of using a successful > non-school-based, indigenous literacy as a tool of self development (the > potential was there in principle, but a total non-starter for many of the > reasons that led to the Liberian civil war). > > After that, it was the potential of 64k memory pc's and store-and-forward > email. A quicky background there can be found by skimming at > lchcautobio.ucsd.edu , the materials in what is called chapters 1, 7, and > 10/11. We hit sweet spots, where really > great intellectual activity was created ... on a small scale. > > Come to think of it, the publication of our ragamuffin volume of Vygotsky's > writings > hit another. > > If there is further discussion, we can assume knowledge of Seymor's work > and a second hand knowledge of programs like Scratch. I have not followed > the curricular programs that you mention, but can figure out what they are > about from your interchange with Michael. Others on the list will know > more. > > I am not a weathered skeptic about technological solutions to social > problems. But the question of whether any proposed new form of activity can > act as a catapult that will > render Australian ( of any other marginalized group) into a situation of > full equality is always an interesting one. > > To be continued. Hopefully others can provide more up to date feedback that > will be of use to you. > > mike > > > > > > I'm interested in your evaluation of your experience of "having failed" > in > > this area if by that you mean introducing digital tech to the > > disadvantaged. I was involved in the One Laptop per Child project (mainly > > evaluating the software not intensive field tests) and have thought about > > why it failed or appeared to fail. Superficially and briefly, the > hardware > > was wonderful, the software ok sort of. But there was little or no > > contextual interaction with the intended recipients in the Third world > > (cultural fail) and the educational philosophy was Seymour Papert's > > constructionism (contextual epistemological fail even though I believe it > > can work with highly skilled teachers). > > > > "Runaway object" is a nice phrase about the sweet spot. But I'm not sure > > about how important it is conceptually, ie. the underlying reasons why it > > runs away? > > > > The references I have provided include dense books by > > Wolff Michael Roth (Mathematics of Mathematics): Still reading but very > > impressed. Up until now I've had an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > > learning theory - take a bit from Papert's constructionism, a bit from > > Willingham's cognitivism, a bit from Dennett's behaviourism. Michael > > attempts to put an end to all that and I'm partly persuaded but not yet > > fully. Can't be summarised briefly so I think will require a separate > > thread if and when I get my act together. > > > > and Martin Nakata: first Torres Strait Islander to obtain a PhD (now at > > James Cook Uni Townsville) through an incredible analysis developing a > > profound theory of the Cultural Interface. Once again hard to summarise > > briefly. But since the Cultural Interface becomes a tower of many Babels > > then for me it highlights again the importance of paying a lot of > attention > > to context. > > > > Kwame Appiah is an easier read and it was his quote from Salman Rushdie > > that I extracted the concept of mongrel cultures > > > > I can provide an elaboration of my own fairly soon of the overall > approach > > (digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky) but not sure how to summarise the > > above authors briefly. > > > > Reality check: Schools / education dominated by mechanical > epistemologies, > > bland cultures and technocentric thinking in the IT department creating > > overall too many hurdles to jump. Nevertheless, I am aware of some > > promising exemplars but most / all of them don't encompass the sweet spot > > implied by my 3 teething rings. So does my analysis have the potential to > > do it better or does on the ground partly inspired pragmatism prevail? > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > Cool note, Bill. > > > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always > interested > > > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change > means > > > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." > > > > > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > > > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution > > > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > > > > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look > forward > > > to the followups. > > > > > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > > > > > mike > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the > > Djarragun > > > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that > > is > > > > Life After Noel here > > > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel > As > > an > > > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as > a > > > life > > > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who > > > have > > > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > > > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > > > > another thread. > > > > > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or > > Noel. > > > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for > me > > to > > > > get > > > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > > > Instruction > > > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a > good > > > > > location > > > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > > > (pragmatically) > > > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned > into > > a > > > > > hands > > > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > > > organised > > > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > > > knowledge > > > > > is > > > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > > > attention > > > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating > > what > > > is > > > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of > other > > > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > > > constructivist. > > > > > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame > Appiah?s > > > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > > > mongrel > > > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > > > > created > > > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It > > follows > > > > > from > > > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must > > be > > > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human > technologies > > > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology > (moving > > > > bits) > > > > > is > > > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only > > effective > > > > way > > > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the > > medium. > > > > > Some > > > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > > > understood > > > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware > (Raspberry > > > Pi > > > > > and > > > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > > > (sneakernet > > > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > > > Vygotsky?. > > > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the > > contextual > > > > > sweet > > > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > > > Strangers > > > > > > (2007) > > > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the > Disciplines > > > > (2007) > > > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking > with > > > the > > > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 19:15:23 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:15:23 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth Message-ID: One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to individual actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body. This world view is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers under pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list could be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to develop a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. As Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied learning theory. From billkerr@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 19:51:25 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 12:51:25 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky Message-ID: It's difficult to summarise Martin Nakata's Cultural Interface theory but his PhD is available online: https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/11908/ It was later published as "Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines" (2007) I'll provide a limited extract, p. 33-4 from the PhD link A Countervailing Hypothesis An alternate view of the current educational literature is that unresolved problems experienced in the 1990s can not be a simple case of a lack of basic infrastructures to support policy positions. Nor can the problem be seen as a simple case of appropriating a 'different agenda' for people of another culture. In order to improve educational outcomes, Islander positions in schooling need to be considered as a dynamic lifeworld of a complex interplay between what is known as history by Islanders and what non-Islanders know as history. And we will not be able to fully realise what that lifeworld is about until we understand more about the epistemological constraints in historical practices that have served to constitute Islander positions in terms of 'them and us' relations. It is, I would argue, because non-Islanders have reified these positions between 'them and us' as if these are the ways things are and always have been. In their many documentations of Islanders in these ways, they have institutionalised a modus operandi which, in turn, has served not only to limit what can or can not be seen as positions and experiences in schools but also how schooling situations for Islanders can be improved. A countervailing hypothesis then is that the 'them and us' schema in histories, and its reification across the many documentations of Islanders over the past Century has set the conditions as well as the limits that constrain how we are to intervene in Islander education. By investigating the documentation that gives witness to what non-Islanders have done when they have intervened in Islander lifeworlds, and by investigating the knowledges produced on Islanders by non-Islanders we will gain a much clearer understanding of the position of Islanders and the way non-Islander intervention has conditioned our lifeworld. From this position, a clearer understanding of the limits of current educational reform trends can be gained. And following on from this, it may then be possible to begin to construct an alternative foundation from which to view the educational issues which concern Islanders. On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > Cool note, Bill. > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always interested > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change means > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look forward > to the followups. > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > mike > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the Djarragun > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that is > > Life After Noel here > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As an > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a > life > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who > have > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > > another thread. > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or Noel. > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > > get > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > Instruction > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > > > location > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > (pragmatically) > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a > > > hands > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > organised > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > knowledge > > > is > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > attention > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what > is > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > constructivist. > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > mongrel > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > > created > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows > > > from > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > > bits) > > > is > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective > > way > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. > > > Some > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > understood > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry > Pi > > > and > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > (sneakernet > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > Vygotsky?. > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > > > sweet > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > Strangers > > > > (2007) > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines > > (2007) > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with > the > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Tue Apr 10 20:27:15 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:27:15 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: ... the ideal of contamination has no more eloquent exponent than Salman Rushdie, who has insisted that the novel that occasioned his fatwa "celebrates hybridity, impurity, intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas politics, movies, songs. It rejoices in *mongrelisation* and fears the absolutism of the Pure. Melange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world. It is the great possibility that mass migration gives the world, an I have tried to embrace it" -Kwame Anthony Appiah. *Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers* (2006) This is where the idea of including mongrel in "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" originated. Martin Nakata's cultural interface is a mongrel. Also some see Michael Roth's interpretation of Vygotsky as mongrel (?) which I would see as a good thing (to mongrelise both culture and Vygotsky) On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > Cool note, Bill. > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always interested > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change means > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway object." > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the distribution > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look forward > to the followups. > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > mike > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the Djarragun > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on that is > > Life After Noel here > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel As an > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not as a > life > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those who > have > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want to > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please start > > another thread. > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or Noel. > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to > > get > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > Instruction > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good > > > location > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > (pragmatically) > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a > > > hands > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > organised > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > knowledge > > > is > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > attention > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating what > is > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > constructivist. > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah?s > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is > > mongrel > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads > > created > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows > > > from > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures must be > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving > > bits) > > > is > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective > > way > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. > > > Some > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > understood > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry > Pi > > > and > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > (sneakernet > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > Vygotsky?. > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual > > > sweet > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > Strangers > > > > (2007) > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines > > (2007) > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with > the > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 04:57:34 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 04:57:34 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Bill, it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the relation between two people before you see it in individuals... I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for building anything like "meaning?" So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. Personality*). Cheers, Michael On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to individual > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers under > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list could > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to develop > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. As > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > learning theory. > From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 05:17:44 2018 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 15:17:44 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Karl Marx was not German Message-ID: He was Russian. https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister/status/983798711926054912 *Charles Lister*?Compte certifi? @Charles_Lister SuivreSuivre @Charles_Lister Plus UK Amb. to the UN, @KarenPierceUN : - "With respect to Karl #Marx , I think he must be turning in his grave to see what has become of his country? in its defense of the use of chemical weapons against the innocent.? https://twitter.com/Charles_Lister Perhaps, Marx was awarded honorary citizenship during USSR which no longer exists and is not the same as today's Russia. From carolmacdon@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 05:29:11 2018 From: carolmacdon@gmail.com (Carol Macdonald) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 14:29:11 +0200 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: These are two interesting points: I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that constructivists say that we use to construct? *How can a hominid construct"meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing fortermites? * Surely there was a developing "awareness" that this was a useful way of getting food. The notion of branch as tool would only be required much later. *And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words whenthey do not have a system that would serve as material and tool forbuilding anything like "meaning? * As far as we can reconstruct, facial expression, pointing/gestures are precursors of words. They too are ways of getting things done - in this case, ways of getting other people to do things. In the way you put these two points, meaning is emergent. It emerges socially. I don't know if that helps. Carol On 11 April 2018 at 13:57, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Hi Bill, > it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that > it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this > is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every > higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct > "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for > termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when > they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > building anything like "meaning?" > > So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened > to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists > are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > Personality*). > > Cheers, > Michael > > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and > > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > individual > > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal > > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > real > > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether > > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, > > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > under > > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > > > > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting > > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something > > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism > > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > could > > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > develop > > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. > As > > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no > > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > > > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to > > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > > learning theory. > > > -- Carol A Macdonald Ph.D (Edin) Cultural Historical Activity Theory Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa alternative email address: tmacdoca@unisa.ac.za From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 05:47:28 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 05:47:28 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Carol, Vygotsky was onto something when he turned from meaning to sense, which he recognized infants to be oriented to from very early on. A theory of sense existed before Vygotsky died (i.e. Sch?tz 1932), but unfortunately the English translation is very bad (similar to the 1962 translation of Thinking and Speech). In it, "meaning" is but one of the phases of sense (this is what Vygotsky wrote in chapter 7). Once you have a sense-giving field, WORDS (and other things) make sense. (Please note, words (actions...) make sense, rather than people making meaning.... The problem is if you think of words as things, then meaning is a thing, and you are in a morass of intellectualism that Vygotsky attempted to escape near the end of his life----e.g. when he defined the minimum unit / identity of person and environment (perezhivanie) Unfortunately he had no time to continue thinking along the lines of that minimum unit. Indeed, others already had fleshed out such an approach by the time Vygotsky only began thinking about it. (I am thinking of the contemporary triad Dewey, Mead, and Whitehead) Michael On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 5:29 AM, Carol Macdonald wrote: > These are two interesting points: > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > constructivists say that we use to construct? > > > > *How can a hominid construct"meaning" of the branch as tool to start > digging for roots or fishing fortermites? * > > Surely there was a developing "awareness" that this was a useful way of > getting food. The notion of branch as tool would only be required much > later. > > > > *And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words whenthey do not > have a system that would serve as material and tool forbuilding anything > like "meaning? * > > As far as we can reconstruct, facial expression, pointing/gestures are > precursors of words. They too are ways of getting things done - in this > case, ways of getting other people to do things. > > In the way you put these two points, meaning is emergent. It emerges > socially. > > I don't know if that helps. > > Carol > > On 11 April 2018 at 13:57, Wolff-Michael Roth > > wrote: > > > Hi Bill, > > it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > that > > it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this > > is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every > > higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > > people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > > relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > species > > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct > > "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for > > termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when > > they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > > building anything like "meaning?" > > > > So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > > culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > > > And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened > > to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > > [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists > > are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > > Personality*). > > > > Cheers, > > Michael > > > > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > > > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > > > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and > > > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > > individual > > > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > > > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > > > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > internal > > > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > > > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > > real > > > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > > > > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > > > > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > whether > > > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > practice, > > > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > > > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > > under > > > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > > > > > > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > > > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > > > > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting > > > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > > > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something > > > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > enactivism > > > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > > could > > > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > > develop > > > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > that. > > As > > > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no > > > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > > > > > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt > to > > > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > > > learning theory. > > > > > > > > > -- > Carol A Macdonald Ph.D (Edin) > Cultural Historical Activity Theory > Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa > alternative email address: tmacdoca@unisa.ac.za > From andyb@marxists.org Wed Apr 11 06:15:02 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:15:02 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings before there was culture. And I gather you do not count tools as units of culture. Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Hi Bill, > it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that > it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this > is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every > higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct > "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for > termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when > they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > building anything like "meaning?" > > So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened > to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists > are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > Personality*). > > Cheers, > Michael > > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > >> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and >> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to individual >> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal >> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real >> deal is an integrated thinking body. >> >> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >> >> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether >> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, >> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers under >> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. >> >> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See >> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >> >> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting >> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something >> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism >> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list could >> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to develop >> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. As >> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no >> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >> >> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to >> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >> learning theory. >> From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Apr 11 06:34:05 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 06:34:05 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky In-Reply-To: References: <706a3961-f515-5cfa-f29f-86348845a70c@marxists.org> Message-ID: Great tips for new, relevant sources ?for us to ?pu? rsue ? in this domain. Thanks Bill. mike ? On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 5:57 PM Bill Kerr wrote: > hi Mike Cole, > > I've just read chs. 7 and 11 of LCHC. I agree that issues discussed there > are still relevant, initially > - fun / academic balance - the overwhelming impulse for kids to play games > (and how to evaluate those games) always raises that issue sharply > (other balances need to be addressed too - the issue of the dangers > associated with computer communications and what to do about that - porn, > cyberbullying etc.) > > - the pen pal activity is one that I have done in the past but forgot about > - I think it has potential for remote Australians esp given that many urban > Private schools go out of their way to cultivate an indigenous connection > these days > > I'll try to work on a more comprehensive draft over the next day or so. > > Yes, I'm familiar with Seymour's work and Scratch. Also Brian Harvey wrote > an important critique of Mitch Resnick's logo decentralisation thesis > (Logo: Capitalist Tool?) > https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/capitalist.html. I see all of Brian's > work as important > https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/?_ga=2.114682821. > 374017054.1523407499-1495565323.1520672862 > wrt socially relevant computing > > thanks for the valuable link > > > On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 10:38 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Hi Bill -- I am mindful that i have some responses owed in the > conversation > > about Vygotsky's chapter, and am struggling to find time there is so much > > to discuss). > > > > Michael Roth is a frequent contributor to xmca. And the Spinoza-Vygotsky > > relationship is hoth these days. Seems likely has has an article that > would > > give people quick > > access. And, the literature on the implementations of the one-lap top > > experiment is easily accessible with a google search. The Appiah looks > > really interesting.... So there is plentyh of overlap of interest there. > > > > I come from an earlier generation where there was a different mashup of > > Vygotsky and cultural context. The big deal back then was "The New > > Mathematics." And later, the potential of using a successful > > non-school-based, indigenous literacy as a tool of self development (the > > potential was there in principle, but a total non-starter for many of the > > reasons that led to the Liberian civil war). > > > > After that, it was the potential of 64k memory pc's and store-and-forward > > email. A quicky background there can be found by skimming at > > lchcautobio.ucsd.edu , the materials in what is called chapters 1, 7, > and > > 10/11. We hit sweet spots, where really > > great intellectual activity was created ... on a small scale. > > > > Come to think of it, the publication of our ragamuffin volume of > Vygotsky's > > writings > > hit another. > > > > If there is further discussion, we can assume knowledge of Seymor's work > > and a second hand knowledge of programs like Scratch. I have not followed > > the curricular programs that you mention, but can figure out what they > are > > about from your interchange with Michael. Others on the list will know > > more. > > > > I am not a weathered skeptic about technological solutions to social > > problems. But the question of whether any proposed new form of activity > can > > act as a catapult that will > > render Australian ( of any other marginalized group) into a situation of > > full equality is always an interesting one. > > > > To be continued. Hopefully others can provide more up to date feedback > that > > will be of use to you. > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > I'm interested in your evaluation of your experience of "having failed" > > in > > > this area if by that you mean introducing digital tech to the > > > disadvantaged. I was involved in the One Laptop per Child project > (mainly > > > evaluating the software not intensive field tests) and have thought > about > > > why it failed or appeared to fail. Superficially and briefly, the > > hardware > > > was wonderful, the software ok sort of. But there was little or no > > > contextual interaction with the intended recipients in the Third world > > > (cultural fail) and the educational philosophy was Seymour Papert's > > > constructionism (contextual epistemological fail even though I believe > it > > > can work with highly skilled teachers). > > > > > > "Runaway object" is a nice phrase about the sweet spot. But I'm not > sure > > > about how important it is conceptually, ie. the underlying reasons why > it > > > runs away? > > > > > > The references I have provided include dense books by > > > Wolff Michael Roth (Mathematics of Mathematics): Still reading but very > > > impressed. Up until now I've had an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > > > learning theory - take a bit from Papert's constructionism, a bit from > > > Willingham's cognitivism, a bit from Dennett's behaviourism. Michael > > > attempts to put an end to all that and I'm partly persuaded but not yet > > > fully. Can't be summarised briefly so I think will require a separate > > > thread if and when I get my act together. > > > > > > and Martin Nakata: first Torres Strait Islander to obtain a PhD (now > at > > > James Cook Uni Townsville) through an incredible analysis developing a > > > profound theory of the Cultural Interface. Once again hard to summarise > > > briefly. But since the Cultural Interface becomes a tower of many > Babels > > > then for me it highlights again the importance of paying a lot of > > attention > > > to context. > > > > > > Kwame Appiah is an easier read and it was his quote from Salman Rushdie > > > that I extracted the concept of mongrel cultures > > > > > > I can provide an elaboration of my own fairly soon of the overall > > approach > > > (digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky) but not sure how to summarise the > > > above authors briefly. > > > > > > Reality check: Schools / education dominated by mechanical > > epistemologies, > > > bland cultures and technocentric thinking in the IT department creating > > > overall too many hurdles to jump. Nevertheless, I am aware of some > > > promising exemplars but most / all of them don't encompass the sweet > spot > > > implied by my 3 teething rings. So does my analysis have the potential > to > > > do it better or does on the ground partly inspired pragmatism prevail? > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > > > Cool note, Bill. > > > > Having failed several times in this general arena, I am always > > interested > > > > in finding the sweet spot. In my experience, the process of change > > means > > > > that "the spot" itself is, to borrow Yrjo's phrase, a "runaway > object." > > > > > > > > Further engagement now entails that people do some common reading > > > > and that can be a perilous undertaking on xmca! Often the > distribution > > > > of the key texts help a lot, or links. > > > > > > > > Saturday evening over here. Headed out for the evening, but look > > forward > > > > to the followups. > > > > > > > > Good Sunday morning to you. > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > On Sat, Apr 7, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Bill Kerr > wrote: > > > > > > > > > off topic Andy - but what I said was Noel's DI approach in the > > > Djarragun > > > > > school context not necessarily DI as such. My 4000 word essay on > that > > > is > > > > > Life After Noel here > > > > > https://sites.google.com/site/livingcontradictions/life-after-noel > > As > > > an > > > > > evidence based approach and plenty of anecdotes I have heard in > > > > > Australia's deep north it can still be argued that "DI works" not > as > > a > > > > life > > > > > long approach but in the context of a catch up approach for those > who > > > > have > > > > > missed out on early years basic literacy and numeracy. If you want > to > > > > > discuss my "Life after Noel' essay or DI in general then please > start > > > > > another thread. > > > > > > > > > > This thread is about "digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky" not DI or > > > Noel. > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:32 AM, Andy Blunden > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > So you have given Direct Instruction a fail, Bill. For > > > > > > people in the field that is probably not a surprise, but it > > > > > > is very significant for the general public here in Oz. Could > > > > > > you summarise what brought you to the conclusion? > > > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > > On 8/04/2018 10:02 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > > > I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for > > me > > > to > > > > > get > > > > > > > to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct > > > > Instruction > > > > > > > approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a > > good > > > > > > location > > > > > > > for further action research into Australian indigenous issues. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ?DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY > > > > > > > - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way > > > > > (pragmatically) > > > > > > > to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned > > into > > > a > > > > > > hands > > > > > > > on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be > > > > > organised > > > > > > > under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all > > > > > knowledge > > > > > > is > > > > > > > socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed > > > > > attention > > > > > > > in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating > > > what > > > > is > > > > > > > going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of > > other > > > > > > > learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or > > > > constructivist. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *Culture*: Martin Nakata?s (cultural interface) and Kwame > > Appiah?s > > > > > > > (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture > is > > > > > mongrel > > > > > > > (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex > threads > > > > > created > > > > > > > by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It > > > follows > > > > > > from > > > > > > > this that effective communication between different cultures > must > > > be > > > > > > > contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human > > technologies > > > > > > > originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology > > (moving > > > > > bits) > > > > > > is > > > > > > > now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only > > > effective > > > > > way > > > > > > > to master digital technology is through full immersion in the > > > medium. > > > > > > Some > > > > > > > groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have > > > > > understood > > > > > > > this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware > > (Raspberry > > > > Pi > > > > > > and > > > > > > > low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure > > > > > (sneakernet > > > > > > > where internet connectivity is limited). > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Combining these approached leads to ?Digital Immersion Mongrel > > > > > Vygotsky?. > > > > > > > The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the > > > contextual > > > > > > sweet > > > > > > > spot in the middle of the teething rings. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *Reference*: > > > > > > > Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of > > > > Strangers > > > > > > > (2007) > > > > > > > Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ > > > > > > > Nakata, Martin. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the > > Disciplines > > > > > (2007) > > > > > > > Roth, Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking > > with > > > > the > > > > > > > Late, Spinozist Vygotsky (2017) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 06:44:21 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 06:44:21 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> Message-ID: No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of the mind. m On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > tools as units of culture. > Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > Hi Bill, > > it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > that > > it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this > > is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every > > higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > > people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > > relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > species > > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct > > "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for > > termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when > > they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > > building anything like "meaning?" > > > > So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > > culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > > > And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened > > to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > > [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists > > are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > > Personality*). > > > > Cheers, > > Michael > > > > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > >> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > >> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > >> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and > >> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > individual > >> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > >> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > >> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > internal > >> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > >> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > real > >> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >> > >> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >> > >> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether > >> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, > >> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > >> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > under > >> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > >> > >> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > >> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >> > >> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting > >> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > >> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something > >> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism > >> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > could > >> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > develop > >> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > that. As > >> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no > >> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > >> > >> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to > >> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > >> learning theory. > >> > > From andyb@marxists.org Wed Apr 11 06:47:39 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:47:39 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> Message-ID: <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and > generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain > culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of the > mind. m > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >> tools as units of culture. >> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> Hi Bill, >>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is >> that >>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this >>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every >>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the >>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>> >>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our >> species >>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where >>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct >>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for >>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when >>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >>> building anything like "meaning?" >>> >>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before >>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >>> >>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened >>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists >>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >>> Personality*). >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Michael >>> >>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>> >>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and >>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >> individual >>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >> internal >>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the >> real >>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>> >>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>> >>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether >>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, >>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers >> under >>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. >>>> >>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See >>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>> >>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting >>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something >>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism >>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list >> could >>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to >> develop >>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >> that. As >>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no >>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >>>> >>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to >>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >>>> learning theory. >>>> >> From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 07:02:30 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 07:02:30 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> Message-ID: I do not think mind is a construction, Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the social relation between two people" (p.56) And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of their [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, like stereo (spatial) vision is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, an ensemble effect deriving from relations. m On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and > > generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain > > culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of the > > mind. m > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > >> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > >> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > >> tools as units of culture. > >> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > >> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > >> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > >> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>> Hi Bill, > >>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > >> that > >>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and > this > >>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > "every > >>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > >>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > >>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > >>> > >>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > >> species > >>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, > where > >>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > construct > >>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing > for > >>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words > when > >>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > >>> building anything like "meaning?" > >>> > >>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > before > >>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > >>> > >>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > listened > >>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > >>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > psychologists > >>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > >>> Personality*). > >>> > >>> Cheers, > >>> Michael > >>> > >>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > >>> > >>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > >>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > >>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > and > >>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > >> individual > >>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > >>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > >>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > >> internal > >>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > >>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > >> real > >>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >>>> > >>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >>>> > >>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > whether > >>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > practice, > >>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > >>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > >> under > >>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > >>>> > >>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > >>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >>>> > >>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > putting > >>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > >>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > something > >>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > enactivism > >>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > >> could > >>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > >> develop > >>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > >> that. As > >>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is > no > >>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > >>>> > >>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt > to > >>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > >>>> learning theory. > >>>> > >> > > From andyb@marxists.org Wed Apr 11 07:09:31 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:09:31 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> Message-ID: All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so slightly different words. a ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > I do not think mind is a construction, > > Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the > social relation between two people" (p.56) > > And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of their > [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) > > Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, like > stereo (spatial) vision > is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that > sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct > stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > m > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and >>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain >>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of the >>> mind. m >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>> tools as units of culture. >>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is >>>> that >>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and >> this >>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because >> "every >>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the >>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>> >>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our >>>> species >>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, >> where >>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >> construct >>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing >> for >>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words >> when >>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>> >>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from >> before >>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >>>>> >>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we >> listened >>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >> psychologists >>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >>>>> Personality*). >>>>> >>>>> Cheers, >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting >> and >>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >>>> individual >>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >>>> internal >>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the >>>> real >>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>> >>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>> >>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of >> whether >>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >> practice, >>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers >>>> under >>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. >>>>>> >>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See >>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>> >>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to >> putting >>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >> something >>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >> enactivism >>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list >>>> could >>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to >>>> develop >>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >>>> that. As >>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is >> no >>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >>>>>> >>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt >> to >>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>> >> From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 07:15:15 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 07:15:15 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> Message-ID: Hi Andy, one more thing, where I think the line that people such as F.T. Mikhailov and E.V. Il'enkov are pursuing more productive lines of inquiry. To the question you earlier raised, about becoming human, Mikhailov writes: we should perhaps endeavor to offer some concrete content to the postulate of a relation that is generative of man: Perhaps we ought, once and for all, define it as follows: *a* *relation generative of man is nothing other than the affective, sense-giving* *relation of our animal forebears, in the first instance, toward* *one another*. (Mikhailov, 2001, p. 26, original emphasis) and His is a special niche, for it is not only biologically self-sufficient: created via the orientation by each of his behavior toward the subjective response of others, this niche transforms the natural conditions of man?s life and all material means of joint activity in communication into an objectively real support and into material limits on a special psychological space, the tense field of joint experience of a future action externalized for one another with all the means of cooperation. This creates the borderline situation in which the alien is identical with one?s own and one?s own exists as an experienced reality of Other. (Mikhailov, 2001, p. 26, original emphasis) I see nothing of construction. Voloshinov would say that the construction metaphor is an *ideology*; it is one gone wild, so ingrained that when somebody dares questioning it, s/he might be mobbed. m On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > I do not think mind is a construction, > > Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the > social relation between two people" (p.56) > > And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of their > [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) > > Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, like > stereo (spatial) vision > is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that > sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct > stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > m > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >> > No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and >> > generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain >> > culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of >> the >> > mind. m >> > >> > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >> > >> >> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >> >> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >> >> tools as units of culture. >> >> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >> >> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >> >> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >> >> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >> >> >> >> Andy >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> Andy Blunden >> >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >> >>> Hi Bill, >> >>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is >> >> that >> >>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and >> this >> >>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because >> "every >> >>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >> >>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was >> the >> >>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >> >>> >> >>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our >> >> species >> >>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, >> where >> >>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >> >>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >> construct >> >>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing >> for >> >>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words >> when >> >>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >> >>> building anything like "meaning?" >> >>> >> >>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from >> before >> >>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >> >>> >> >>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we >> listened >> >>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >> >>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >> psychologists >> >>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >> >>> Personality*). >> >>> >> >>> Cheers, >> >>> Michael >> >>> >> >>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >> wrote: >> >>> >> >>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >> >>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >> >>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting >> and >> >>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >> >> individual >> >>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >> >>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >> >>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >> >> internal >> >>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >> >>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas >> the >> >> real >> >>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >> >>>> >> >>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >> >>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >> >>>> >> >>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of >> whether >> >>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >> practice, >> >>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >> >>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers >> >> under >> >>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. >> >>>> >> >>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See >> >>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >> >>>> >> >>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to >> putting >> >>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >> >>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >> something >> >>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >> enactivism >> >>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list >> >> could >> >>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to >> >> develop >> >>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >> >> that. As >> >>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is >> no >> >>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >> >>>> >> >>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >> attempt to >> >>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >> >>>> learning theory. >> >>>> >> >> >> >> > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 07:18:27 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 07:18:27 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> Message-ID: Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect of mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a manifestation of a relationship. Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the basis of what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an example that Vygotsky takes up). Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism that Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life m On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > slightly different words. > > a > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > I do not think mind is a construction, > > > > Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the > > social relation between two people" (p.56) > > > > And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > > mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > > coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > > as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of > their > > [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) > > > > Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, like > > stereo (spatial) vision > > is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > > > Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that > > sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > > > Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct > > stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > > an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > > > m > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > >> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > >> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > >> > >> Andy > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and > >>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain > >>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of > the > >>> mind. m > >>> > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden > >> wrote: > >>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > >>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > >>>> tools as units of culture. > >>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > >>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > >>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > >>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > >>>> > >>>> Andy > >>>> > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>> Andy Blunden > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>> Hi Bill, > >>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > >>>> that > >>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and > >> this > >>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > >> "every > >>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > >>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was > the > >>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > >>>>> > >>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > >>>> species > >>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, > >> where > >>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > >> construct > >>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing > >> for > >>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words > >> when > >>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > >>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > >>>>> > >>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > >> before > >>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > >>>>> > >>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > >> listened > >>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > >>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > >> psychologists > >>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > >>>>> Personality*). > >>>>> > >>>>> Cheers, > >>>>> Michael > >>>>> > >>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > >>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > >>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > >> and > >>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > >>>> individual > >>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > >>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > >>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > >>>> internal > >>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > >>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas > the > >>>> real > >>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > >> whether > >>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > >> practice, > >>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > >>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > teachers > >>>> under > >>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > works?. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. > See > >>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > >> putting > >>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > >>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > >> something > >>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > >> enactivism > >>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this > list > >>>> could > >>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > >>>> develop > >>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > >>>> that. As > >>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is > >> no > >>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > attempt > >> to > >>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > >>>>>> learning theory. > >>>>>> > >> > > From andyb@marxists.org Wed Apr 11 07:29:40 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:29:40 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> Message-ID: <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same move in his criticism of Vygotsky. Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest times we have any real knowledge of, though. As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be Emergence. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect of > mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a manifestation of a > relationship. > > Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the basis of > what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the > craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an example > that Vygotsky takes up). > > Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism that > Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > > m > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >> slightly different words. >> >> a >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>> >>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the >>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>> >>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of >> their >>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) >>> >>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, like >>> stereo (spatial) vision >>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>> >>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that >>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>> >>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct >>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>> >>> m >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and >>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain >>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of >> the >>>>> mind. m >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> wrote: >>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is >>>>>> that >>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and >>>> this >>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because >>>> "every >>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was >> the >>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our >>>>>> species >>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, >>>> where >>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>> construct >>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing >>>> for >>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words >>>> when >>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>> >>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from >>>> before >>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we >>>> listened >>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>> psychologists >>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >> wrote: >>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting >>>> and >>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >>>>>> individual >>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >>>>>> internal >>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas >> the >>>>>> real >>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of >>>> whether >>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>> practice, >>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >> teachers >>>>>> under >>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >> works?. >>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. >> See >>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to >>>> putting >>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>> something >>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>> enactivism >>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this >> list >>>>>> could >>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to >>>>>> develop >>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is >>>> no >>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >> attempt >>>> to >>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>> >> From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 08:06:22 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:06:22 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is not well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as a counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new things. He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new language that also provides a reason for this language. I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the social in the strong sense is not a construction. Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the French philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, xvii). And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist as relationship m Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > > The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > > Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > times we have any real knowledge of, though. > > As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > Emergence. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect of > > mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a manifestation > of a > > relationship. > > > > Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the basis of > > what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the > > craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an example > > that Vygotsky takes up). > > > > Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism > that > > Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > > > > m > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > >> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > >> slightly different words. > >> > >> a > >> > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >> Andy Blunden > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>> I do not think mind is a construction, > >>> > >>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the > >>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > >>> > >>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > >>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > >>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > >>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of > >> their > >>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) > >>> > >>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, > like > >>> stereo (spatial) vision > >>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > >>> > >>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that > >>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > >>> > >>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct > >>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > >>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > >>> > >>> m > >>> > >>> > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden > >> wrote: > >>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > >>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > >>>> > >>>> Andy > >>>> > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>> Andy Blunden > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and > >>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain > >>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of > >> the > >>>>> mind. m > >>>>> > >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden > >>>> wrote: > >>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > >>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > >>>>>> tools as units of culture. > >>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > >>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > >>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > >>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Andy > >>>>>> > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>> Hi Bill, > >>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book > is > >>>>>> that > >>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, > and > >>>> this > >>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > >>>> "every > >>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > >>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was > >> the > >>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > >>>>>> species > >>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, > >>>> where > >>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > >>>> construct > >>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > fishing > >>>> for > >>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > sound-words > >>>> when > >>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > >>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > >>>> before > >>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > >>>> listened > >>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > >>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > >>>> psychologists > >>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > >>>>>>> Personality*). > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Cheers, > >>>>>>> Michael > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > >> wrote: > >>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that > all > >>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > paying > >>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > detecting > >>>> and > >>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > >>>>>> individual > >>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > words, > >>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in > the > >>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > >>>>>> internal > >>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would > be a > >>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas > >> the > >>>>>> real > >>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > >>>> whether > >>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > >>>> practice, > >>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > alternative > >>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > >> teachers > >>>>>> under > >>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > >> works?. > >>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. > >> See > >>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > >>>> putting > >>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > Papert's > >>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > >>>> something > >>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > >>>> enactivism > >>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this > >> list > >>>>>> could > >>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible > to > >>>>>> develop > >>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > >>>>>> that. As > >>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there > is > >>>> no > >>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > >> attempt > >>>> to > >>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a > unfied > >>>>>>>> learning theory. > >>>>>>>> > >> > > From andyb@marxists.org Wed Apr 11 08:31:00 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 01:31:00 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: the idea of "construction" has the advantage that it is a lot better than any of the other ideas you offered as alternatives. When a series of actions add up to a more remote outcome, and each of the composite actions is goal-oriented in a relevant way, I think there is a fair basis for calling the remote outcome a "construction." I mean, this is in a context where *none* of the protagonists believe that human evolution was the motivation of hominids. It is, I grant you, if one ignores this context, possible to put this absurd spin on "construction."you have made that point. I am not particularly wedded to this word or the concept it indicates. If you have a better one, I'd go for it. But to make your point, you had to have a human life in which there was no culture. You make what seems to be a chicken-and-egg argument to deny the existence of pre-human culture: "before there was culture, before we used tools, where were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that constructivists say that we use to construct?" As Vygotsky pointed out, the crucial activity which is the essence of the human being must be found in rudimentary form in pre-human hominids. He is surely right. Rudimentary culture existed in hominids and this culture (social use of tools and speech) is the conditions which produced human beings. I don't think the goal of that hominid activity was to produce human beings (of course) but it was purposive activity, and the molding of the human form to suit that kind of activity is a *predictable* outcome of that activity. But all this is to the side isn't it? Why are we arguing over these things? What is the motivation? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 12/04/2018 1:06 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is not > well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. > This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as a > counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new things. > He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new > language that also provides a reason for this language. > > I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the French > philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's > fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the > moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, xvii). > > And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the > animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist as > relationship > > m > > Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > >> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >> >> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >> >> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >> >> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >> Emergence. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect of >>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a manifestation >> of a >>> relationship. >>> >>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the basis of >>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an example >>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>> >>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >> that >>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>> >>> m >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>> slightly different words. >>>> >>>> a >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>> >>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was the >>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>> >>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of >>>> their >>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" (pp.20-21) >>>>> >>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, >> like >>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>> >>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that >>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>> >>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct >>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>> >>>>> m >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> wrote: >>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis and >>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to explain >>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* of >>>> the >>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book >> is >>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, >> and >>>>>> this >>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because >>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was >>>> the >>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our >>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, >>>>>> where >>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >> fishing >>>>>> for >>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >> sound-words >>>>>> when >>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from >>>>>> before >>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we >>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that >> all >>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >> paying >>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >> detecting >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >> words, >>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in >> the >>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would >> be a >>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas >>>> the >>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of >>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >> alternative >>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>> teachers >>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. >>>> See >>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to >>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >> Papert's >>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this >>>> list >>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible >> to >>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there >> is >>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>> attempt >>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >> unfied >>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>> >> From billkerr@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 18:42:56 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 11:12:56 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: hi Michael, > not so much "socially constructed." ok, sorry for incorrect summary of your ideas, I guess the construction is so hard wired into me that I didn't notice the misrepresentation > before there was culture, before we used tools, where were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that constructivists say that we use to construct? Well, the hand is a tool and Engels essay "The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man" is one you would know about. > eclecticism Thanks for the Leontev reference. I have read a bit and will read some more before commenting. The reason I'm eclectic is because I read the various learning theories and find some bits are useful for my teaching practice while other bits are not. I'm very impressed by your book in its effort to develop what I call a unified learning theory but it doesn't cover all the bases for me to be fully persuaded. Also some of the critiques you make, eg. of constructivism, don't match my understanding of what they stand for. The critiques in your book are directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 of your book it didn't sound like the Piaget that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s when Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science curricula were developed around his ideas. Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding world" (51) "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that *misconceptions ... have to be eradicated* (53) Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the child's different view of the world. The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some time working with Piaget). This had real life application in the development of logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids would build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo programming language and this would change/develop their minds inside. I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty due to the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I have found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn. Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and tapped into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how do you draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the students to direct him / her to draw a square. Student: "walk forward" Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward Student: forward Teacher: How far? Student: forward 50 etc. etc. This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles (right 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and asks students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code eventually becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90] Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic with the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? From my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, I'm not sure. (my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating what I said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body") It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / constructionism that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into other learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was some discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. I'll put some links here for completion and my own convenience https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards-fingernail-definition-of.html The funny thing was that each new learning theory I looked at offered something useful to me as a practicing teacher. I won't go into more detail at this point, there is enough here already for discussion. On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:27 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Bill, > it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that > it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this > is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every > higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species > becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct > "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for > termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when > they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > building anything like "meaning?" > > So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened > to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists > are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > Personality*). > > Cheers, > Michael > > On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and > > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > individual > > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover internal > > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > real > > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether > > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, > > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > under > > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > > > > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting > > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something > > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism > > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > could > > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > develop > > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for that. > As > > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no > > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > > > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to > > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > > learning theory. > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 19:08:43 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 11:38:43 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: Michael wrote: the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the social in the strong sense is not a construction. I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the poor. Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is not > well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. > This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as a > counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new things. > He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new > language that also provides a reason for this language. > > I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the French > philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's > fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the > moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, xvii). > > And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the > animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist as > relationship > > m > > Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > > > > The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > > way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > > fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > > and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > > But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > > that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > > said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > > evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > > move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > > > > Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > > customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > > stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > > all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > > times we have any real knowledge of, though. > > > > As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > > word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > > Emergence. > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect > of > > > mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a manifestation > > of a > > > relationship. > > > > > > Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the basis > of > > > what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the > > > craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an > example > > > that Vygotsky takes up). > > > > > > Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism > > that > > > Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > > > > > > m > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > > > > >> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > > >> slightly different words. > > >> > > >> a > > >> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >> Andy Blunden > > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > >>> I do not think mind is a construction, > > >>> > > >>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was > the > > >>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > > >>> > > >>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > > >>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > > >>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > > >>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process of > > >> their > > >>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" > (pp.20-21) > > >>> > > >>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate effect, > > like > > >>> stereo (spatial) vision > > >>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > >>> > > >>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of that > > >>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > >>> > > >>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't construct > > >>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > > >>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > >>> > > >>> m > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden > > >> wrote: > > >>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > > >>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > > >>>> > > >>>> Andy > > >>>> > > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>>> Andy Blunden > > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > >>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis > and > > >>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to > explain > > >>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as *constructions* > of > > >> the > > >>>>> mind. m > > >>>>> > > >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden > > >>>> wrote: > > >>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > > >>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > > >>>>>> tools as units of culture. > > >>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > > >>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > > >>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > > >>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> Andy > > >>>>>> > > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > > >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > >>>>>>> Hi Bill, > > >>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the > book > > is > > >>>>>> that > > >>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, > > and > > >>>> this > > >>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, > because > > >>>> "every > > >>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between > two > > >>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, > was > > >> the > > >>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at > our > > >>>>>> species > > >>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used > tools, > > >>>> where > > >>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > >>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > > >>>> construct > > >>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > > fishing > > >>>> for > > >>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > > sound-words > > >>>> when > > >>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool > for > > >>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > > >>>> before > > >>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning > (ontogenesis). > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > > >>>> listened > > >>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic > soup > > >>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > > >>>> psychologists > > >>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > > >>>>>>> Personality*). > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> Cheers, > > >>>>>>> Michael > > >>>>>>> > > >>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > > >> wrote: > > >>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that > > all > > >>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > > paying > > >>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > > detecting > > >>>> and > > >>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > > >>>>>> individual > > >>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > > words, > > >>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in > > the > > >>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > > >>>>>> internal > > >>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would > > be a > > >>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity > whereas > > >> the > > >>>>>> real > > >>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > > >>>>>>>> > > >>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > >>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > >>>>>>>> > > >>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > > >>>> whether > > >>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > > >>>> practice, > > >>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > > alternative > > >>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > > >> teachers > > >>>>>> under > > >>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > > >> works?. > > >>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most > teachers. > > >> See > > >>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > >>>>>>>> > > >>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > > >>>> putting > > >>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > > Papert's > > >>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > > >>>> something > > >>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > > >>>> enactivism > > >>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this > > >> list > > >>>>>> could > > >>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible > > to > > >>>>>> develop > > >>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex > for > > >>>>>> that. As > > >>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is > there > > is > > >>>> no > > >>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's > learn. > > >>>>>>>> > > >>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > > >> attempt > > >>>> to > > >>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a > > unfied > > >>>>>>>> learning theory. > > >>>>>>>> > > >> > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 19:40:00 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 19:40:00 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers understand. Michael On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > Michael wrote: > the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! > Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the poor. > Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is > not > > well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. > > This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as a > > counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new things. > > He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > > together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new > > language that also provides a reason for this language. > > > > I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates > concerning > > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > > > Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the French > > philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's > > fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the > > moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, xvii). > > > > And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the > > animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist as > > relationship > > > > m > > > > Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > > > > Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > > > > > > The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > > > way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > > > fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > > > and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > > > But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > > > that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > > > said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > > > evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > > > move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > > > > > > Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > > > customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > > > stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > > > all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > > > times we have any real knowledge of, though. > > > > > > As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > > > word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > > > Emergence. > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > Andy Blunden > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > > Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect > > of > > > > mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a > manifestation > > > of a > > > > relationship. > > > > > > > > Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the > basis > > of > > > > what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the > > > > craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an > > example > > > > that Vygotsky takes up). > > > > > > > > Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism > > > that > > > > Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > > > > > > > > m > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > > > wrote: > > > > > > > >> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > > > >> slightly different words. > > > >> > > > >> a > > > >> > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >> Andy Blunden > > > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > >>> I do not think mind is a construction, > > > >>> > > > >>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was > > the > > > >>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > > > >>> > > > >>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > > > >>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > > > >>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > > > >>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process > of > > > >> their > > > >>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" > > (pp.20-21) > > > >>> > > > >>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate > effect, > > > like > > > >>> stereo (spatial) vision > > > >>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > > >>> > > > >>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of > that > > > >>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > > >>> > > > >>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't > construct > > > >>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > > > >>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > > >>> > > > >>> m > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden > > > >> wrote: > > > >>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > > > >>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Andy > > > >>>> > > > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >>>> Andy Blunden > > > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > >>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis > > and > > > >>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to > > explain > > > >>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as > *constructions* > > of > > > >> the > > > >>>>> mind. m > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < > andyb@marxists.org> > > > >>>> wrote: > > > >>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > > > >>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > > > >>>>>> tools as units of culture. > > > >>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > > > >>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > > > >>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > > > >>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> Andy > > > >>>>>> > > > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > > > >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > >>>>>>> Hi Bill, > > > >>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the > > book > > > is > > > >>>>>> that > > > >>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is > social, > > > and > > > >>>> this > > > >>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, > > because > > > >>>> "every > > > >>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between > > two > > > >>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, > > was > > > >> the > > > >>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at > > our > > > >>>>>> species > > > >>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used > > tools, > > > >>>> where > > > >>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > > >>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > > > >>>> construct > > > >>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > > > fishing > > > >>>> for > > > >>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > > > sound-words > > > >>>> when > > > >>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool > > for > > > >>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning > from > > > >>>> before > > > >>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning > > (ontogenesis). > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if > we > > > >>>> listened > > > >>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic > > soup > > > >>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > > > >>>> psychologists > > > >>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. > Consciousness. > > > >>>>>>> Personality*). > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> Cheers, > > > >>>>>>> Michael > > > >>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > > > > >> wrote: > > > >>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues > that > > > all > > > >>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > > > paying > > > >>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > > > detecting > > > >>>> and > > > >>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced > to > > > >>>>>> individual > > > >>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > > > words, > > > >>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not > in > > > the > > > >>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). > Moreover > > > >>>>>> internal > > > >>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that > would > > > be a > > > >>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity > > whereas > > > >> the > > > >>>>>> real > > > >>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > >>>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > > >>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > >>>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one > of > > > >>>> whether > > > >>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > > > >>>> practice, > > > >>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > > > alternative > > > >>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > > > >> teachers > > > >>>>>> under > > > >>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > > > >> works?. > > > >>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most > > teachers. > > > >> See > > > >>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > >>>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach > to > > > >>>> putting > > > >>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > > > Papert's > > > >>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > > > >>>> something > > > >>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > > > >>>> enactivism > > > >>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in > this > > > >> list > > > >>>>>> could > > > >>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not > possible > > > to > > > >>>>>> develop > > > >>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex > > for > > > >>>>>> that. As > > > >>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is > > there > > > is > > > >>>> no > > > >>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's > > learn. > > > >>>>>>>> > > > >>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > > > >> attempt > > > >>>> to > > > >>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a > > > unfied > > > >>>>>>>> learning theory. > > > >>>>>>>> > > > >> > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 19:53:58 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 12:23:58 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: What I want from table of contents, will get it ($38 paperback) https://www.amazon.com/Ethnographies-Directions-Ethnomethodology-Conversation-Analysis/dp/113826962X Thanks On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:10 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is > "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers > understand. Michael > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > Michael wrote: > > the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > > > I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > > Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! > > Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the poor. > > Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? > > > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is > > not > > > well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. > > > This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as > a > > > counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new > things. > > > He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > > > together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new > > > language that also provides a reason for this language. > > > > > > I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates > > concerning > > > social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > > > social in the strong sense is not a construction. > > > > > > Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the > French > > > philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's > > > fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the > > > moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, > xvii). > > > > > > And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the > > > animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist > as > > > relationship > > > > > > m > > > > > > Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > > > > > > Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > > > > > > > > The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > > > > way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > > > > fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > > > > and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > > > > But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > > > > that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > > > > said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > > > > evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > > > > move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > > > > > > > > Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > > > > customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > > > > stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > > > > all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > > > > times we have any real knowledge of, though. > > > > > > > > As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > > > > word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > > > > Emergence. > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > > > Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an > effect > > > of > > > > > mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a > > manifestation > > > > of a > > > > > relationship. > > > > > > > > > > Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the > > basis > > > of > > > > > what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., > the > > > > > craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an > > > example > > > > > that Vygotsky takes up). > > > > > > > > > > Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the > intellectualism > > > > that > > > > > Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > > > > > > > > > > m > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > >> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > > > > >> slightly different words. > > > > >> > > > > >> a > > > > >> > > > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >> Andy Blunden > > > > >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > > >>> I do not think mind is a construction, > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... > was > > > the > > > > >>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > > > > >>> > > > > >>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > > > > >>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a > continual > > > > >>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic > interface, > > > > >>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process > > of > > > > >> their > > > > >>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" > > > (pp.20-21) > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate > > effect, > > > > like > > > > >>> stereo (spatial) vision > > > > >>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of > > that > > > > >>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't > > construct > > > > >>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > > > > >>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> m > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden < > andyb@marxists.org> > > > > >> wrote: > > > > >>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > > > > >>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> Andy > > > > >>>> > > > > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >>>> Andy Blunden > > > > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > > >>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. > Anthropogenesis > > > and > > > > >>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to > > > explain > > > > >>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as > > *constructions* > > > of > > > > >> the > > > > >>>>> mind. m > > > > >>>>> > > > > >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < > > andyb@marxists.org> > > > > >>>> wrote: > > > > >>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > > > > >>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > > > > >>>>>> tools as units of culture. > > > > >>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > > > > >>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > > > > >>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > > > > >>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> Andy > > > > >>>>>> > > > > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > > > > >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > >>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > > > >>>>>>> Hi Bill, > > > > >>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the > > > book > > > > is > > > > >>>>>> that > > > > >>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is > > social, > > > > and > > > > >>>> this > > > > >>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, > > > because > > > > >>>> "every > > > > >>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation > between > > > two > > > > >>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is > social, > > > was > > > > >> the > > > > >>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in > individuals... > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look > at > > > our > > > > >>>>>> species > > > > >>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used > > > tools, > > > > >>>> where > > > > >>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > > > >>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a > hominid > > > > >>>> construct > > > > >>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > > > > fishing > > > > >>>> for > > > > >>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > > > > sound-words > > > > >>>> when > > > > >>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and > tool > > > for > > > > >>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning > > from > > > > >>>> before > > > > >>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning > > > (ontogenesis). > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if > > we > > > > >>>> listened > > > > >>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic > > > soup > > > > >>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > > > > >>>> psychologists > > > > >>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. > > Consciousness. > > > > >>>>>>> Personality*). > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> Cheers, > > > > >>>>>>> Michael > > > > >>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr < > billkerr@gmail.com > > > > > > > >> wrote: > > > > >>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues > > that > > > > all > > > > >>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > > > > paying > > > > >>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > > > > detecting > > > > >>>> and > > > > >>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be > reduced > > to > > > > >>>>>> individual > > > > >>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > > > > words, > > > > >>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned > not > > in > > > > the > > > > >>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). > > Moreover > > > > >>>>>> internal > > > > >>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that > > would > > > > be a > > > > >>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity > > > whereas > > > > >> the > > > > >>>>>> real > > > > >>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > > >>>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be > they > > > > >>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > > >>>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic > one > > of > > > > >>>> whether > > > > >>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference > in > > > > >>>> practice, > > > > >>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > > > > alternative > > > > >>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > > > > >> teachers > > > > >>>>>> under > > > > >>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of > ?what > > > > >> works?. > > > > >>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most > > > teachers. > > > > >> See > > > > >>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > > >>>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach > > to > > > > >>>> putting > > > > >>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > > > > Papert's > > > > >>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's > cognitivism, > > > > >>>> something > > > > >>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy > Clarke?s > > > > >>>> enactivism > > > > >>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in > > this > > > > >> list > > > > >>>>>> could > > > > >>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not > > possible > > > > to > > > > >>>>>> develop > > > > >>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too > complex > > > for > > > > >>>>>> that. As > > > > >>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is > > > there > > > > is > > > > >>>> no > > > > >>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's > > > learn. > > > > >>>>>>>> > > > > >>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his > serious > > > > >> attempt > > > > >>>> to > > > > >>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be > a > > > > unfied > > > > >>>>>>>> learning theory. > > > > >>>>>>>> > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From bferholt@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 20:04:31 2018 From: bferholt@gmail.com (Beth Ferholt) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:04:31 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Master Class with Michael Cole: The Story of LCHC -- May 12 Message-ID: We invite you to participate in a Master Class with Michael Cole on Culture, Development, and the Social Creation of Social Inequality: A Polyphonic Autobiography, and, more broadly, the history and legacy of LCHC. Two members at the lab and different times ?Lois Holzman from the Rockefeller University days in the 1970s and Beth Ferholt most recently in the 2000s -- will join Mike in the class. We three are wanting to learn how people are responding to the document: What resonates, what?s confusing, what?s relevant to the current day and to the work that we all do, etc. The 90-minute conversation will take place Saturday, May 12, 11:00 ? 12:30 PM EDT. It will be uploaded to the MCA website and kept there for future use. If you are interested in registering for this class, please send an email to lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org and we will send you further information including the instructions for entering the Zoom conversation. Do note that the document can take a while to get through, so leave yourself enough time to read through it all before the class. The link to the document is as follows: http://lchcautobio.ucsd.edu/polyphonic-autobiography/ Also, please do pass on this invite to students and colleagues who might like to join. Thank you! -- Beth Ferholt Associate 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 From billkerr@gmail.com Wed Apr 11 23:25:37 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 15:55:37 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ps. Addition to this comment from me above: Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic with the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? From my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, I'm not sure. On page 49, FN 31 Michael cites 2 papers about the emergence of signs from hands on science. This seems to me to be compatible with Bruner's approach which he summed up with the slogan "doing with images makes symbols" and also with Seymour's "object to think with" even though he didn't spell out the signs when he said that. My speculation here (to be shot down probably); Michael Roth's theory and Papert / Bruner theory cover the same ground and reach similar conclusions but they have different names On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > hi Michael, > > > not so much "socially constructed." > > ok, sorry for incorrect summary of your ideas, I guess the construction is > so hard wired into me that I didn't notice the misrepresentation > > > before there was culture, before we used tools, where > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > constructivists say that we use to construct? > > Well, the hand is a tool and Engels essay "The part played by labour in > the transition from ape to man" is one you would know about. > > > eclecticism > > Thanks for the Leontev reference. I have read a bit and will read some > more before commenting. > > The reason I'm eclectic is because I read the various learning theories > and find some bits are useful for my teaching practice while other bits are > not. I'm very impressed by your book in its effort to develop what I call a > unified learning theory but it doesn't cover all the bases for me to be > fully persuaded. > > Also some of the critiques you make, eg. of constructivism, don't match my > understanding of what they stand for. The critiques in your book are > directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / > Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 of your book it didn't sound like the Piaget > that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s when > Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science curricula > were developed around his ideas. > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > world" (51) > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that *misconceptions > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > child's different view of the world. > > The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called > constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal > constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some time > working with Piaget). This had real life application in the development of > logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids would > build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo > programming language and this would change/develop their minds inside. > > I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty due to > the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I have > found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn. > > Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and tapped > into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how do you > draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the students to > direct him / her to draw a square. > Student: "walk forward" > Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward > Student: forward > Teacher: How far? > Student: forward 50 > etc. etc. > This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles (right > 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and asks > students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code eventually > becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90] > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic with > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? From > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, > I'm not sure. > > (my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the > internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating what I > said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be denied > because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind > activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body") > > It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / constructionism > that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into other > learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was some > discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. I'll > put some links here for completion and my own convenience > https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards- > fingernail-definition-of.html > > The funny thing was that each new learning theory I looked at offered > something useful to me as a practicing teacher. I won't go into more detail > at this point, there is enough here already for discussion. > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:27 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hi Bill, >> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is that >> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and this >> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because "every >> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two >> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the >> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >> >> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our species >> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where >> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid construct >> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing for >> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words when >> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for >> building anything like "meaning?" >> >> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before >> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). >> >> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we listened >> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup >> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that psychologists >> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. >> Personality*). >> >> Cheers, >> Michael >> >> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >> >> > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all >> > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying >> > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and >> > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to >> individual >> > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, >> > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the >> > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover >> internal >> > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a >> > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the >> real >> > deal is an integrated thinking body. >> > >> > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >> > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >> > >> > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of whether >> > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in practice, >> > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative >> > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers >> under >> > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. >> > >> > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See >> > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >> > >> > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to putting >> > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's >> > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, something >> > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s enactivism >> > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list >> could >> > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to >> develop >> > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for >> that. As >> > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is no >> > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. >> > >> > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt to >> > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied >> > learning theory. >> > >> > > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Thu Apr 12 08:59:46 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:59:46 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Bill, Michael, and others The problem with these pithy statements is that they do not define their terms. For Vygotsky's "general genetic law" one needs to know what is meant by a function, process, etc, and also an appreciation for different forms of "internal": the internal of operationalisation, in which there is an atrophy of supporting external signs that are replaced by internal signs, contrasted with the internal dialogue often entailed in thought (though granted internal dialogue may have its own externalised progenitors). For Bruner's (Kay's summative) "doing with images makes symbols", one needs to know what is meant by the full connotations of symbol. One might argue that neither Vygotsky nor Bruner really knew with clarity what they respectively meant by function and symbol (distinct from sign) -- it was part of their exploration. It is not that the "genetic law" is wrong per se, in my view, rather that care needs to be taken in differentiating exactly what is being referred to. In this view I see no contradiction between this law and the principles of radical constructivism (which, to me, are rather obvious). The clarification of inner dialogue, for instance, may be exemplified as a dialogue between two perspectives that is no different (logically) between a dialogue between two individuals, as exemplified by Pask's p-individual. Hence in the realm of invention Vygotsky's genetic law may apply equally to the "external" social plane as to the "internal" one. One needs to be clear about what one means by internal-external and to heed the functional possibilities from bootstrapping. This leads to a rejection of a naive application of "all new psychological processes originating from outside", but not from a sophisticated application. Best, Huw On 12 April 2018 at 07:25, Bill Kerr wrote: > ps. Addition to this comment from me above: > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic with > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? From > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, > I'm not sure. > > On page 49, FN 31 Michael cites 2 papers about the emergence of signs from > hands on science. This seems to me to be compatible with Bruner's approach > which he summed up with the slogan "doing with images makes symbols" and > also with Seymour's "object to think with" even though he didn't spell out > the signs when he said that. > > My speculation here (to be shot down probably); Michael Roth's theory and > Papert / Bruner theory cover the same ground and reach similar conclusions > but they have different names > > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > hi Michael, > > > > > not so much "socially constructed." > > > > ok, sorry for incorrect summary of your ideas, I guess the construction > is > > so hard wired into me that I didn't notice the misrepresentation > > > > > before there was culture, before we used tools, where > > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > constructivists say that we use to construct? > > > > Well, the hand is a tool and Engels essay "The part played by labour in > > the transition from ape to man" is one you would know about. > > > > > eclecticism > > > > Thanks for the Leontev reference. I have read a bit and will read some > > more before commenting. > > > > The reason I'm eclectic is because I read the various learning theories > > and find some bits are useful for my teaching practice while other bits > are > > not. I'm very impressed by your book in its effort to develop what I > call a > > unified learning theory but it doesn't cover all the bases for me to be > > fully persuaded. > > > > Also some of the critiques you make, eg. of constructivism, don't match > my > > understanding of what they stand for. The critiques in your book are > > directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / > > Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 of your book it didn't sound like the > Piaget > > that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s when > > Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science curricula > > were developed around his ideas. > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > world" (51) > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > *misconceptions > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > wide > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > incorrect, > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > child's different view of the world. > > > > The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called > > constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal > > constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some time > > working with Piaget). This had real life application in the development > of > > logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids > would > > build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo > > programming language and this would change/develop their minds inside. > > > > I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty due > to > > the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I have > > found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn. > > > > Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and tapped > > into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how do > you > > draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the students > to > > direct him / her to draw a square. > > Student: "walk forward" > > Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward > > Student: forward > > Teacher: How far? > > Student: forward 50 > > etc. etc. > > This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles (right > > 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and > asks > > students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code eventually > > becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90] > > > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes > > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic > with > > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? > From > > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, > > I'm not sure. > > > > (my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the > > internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating what I > > said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be denied > > because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind > > activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body") > > > > It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / > constructionism > > that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into other > > learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was some > > discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. > I'll > > put some links here for completion and my own convenience > > https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards- > > fingernail-definition-of.html > > > > The funny thing was that each new learning theory I looked at offered > > something useful to me as a practicing teacher. I won't go into more > detail > > at this point, there is enough here already for discussion. > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:27 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Hi Bill, > >> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > that > >> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and > this > >> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > "every > >> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > >> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was the > >> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > >> > >> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > species > >> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, where > >> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > construct > >> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing > for > >> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words > when > >> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > >> building anything like "meaning?" > >> > >> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from before > >> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > >> > >> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > listened > >> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > >> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > psychologists > >> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > >> Personality*). > >> > >> Cheers, > >> Michael > >> > >> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > >> > >> > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > >> > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > >> > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > and > >> > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > >> individual > >> > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > >> > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > >> > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > >> internal > >> > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > >> > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the > >> real > >> > deal is an integrated thinking body. > >> > > >> > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >> > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >> > > >> > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > whether > >> > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > practice, > >> > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > >> > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real teachers > >> under > >> > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what works?. > >> > > >> > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. See > >> > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >> > > >> > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > putting > >> > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > >> > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > something > >> > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > enactivism > >> > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this list > >> could > >> > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > >> develop > >> > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > >> that. As > >> > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is > no > >> > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > >> > > >> > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious attempt > to > >> > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > >> > learning theory. > >> > > >> > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Thu Apr 12 09:34:00 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2018 09:34:00 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Huw, I can't see how the radical constructivist position (e..g von Glasersfeld) has anything in common with a radically social take, here I do not mean the "social constructivist" version, which is just adding external relations between elemental individuals (see, e.g., how Glaserfeld makes the "other" a construction of the Self, which externalizes itself as a model on which the notion of the other is based). In a vast part of the philosophical (and poetic) literature, coming from very different traditions, the Self is another (Soi-m?me comme un autre, as Ric?ur says, or Rimbaud's famous aphorism, "Je est un autre" etc. etc) I am trying to understand where to place myself so that these differences become the same (like in physics, where the simultaneity is a question of position). But my hunch is that the ontology is object-oriented, and that the presuppositions are Newtonian-Cartesian-Kantian. Michael On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 8:59 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Bill, Michael, and others > > The problem with these pithy statements is that they do not define their > terms. For Vygotsky's "general genetic law" one needs to know what is meant > by a function, process, etc, and also an appreciation for different forms > of "internal": the internal of operationalisation, in which there is an > atrophy of supporting external signs that are replaced by internal signs, > contrasted with the internal dialogue often entailed in thought (though > granted internal dialogue may have its own externalised progenitors). For > Bruner's (Kay's summative) "doing with images makes symbols", one needs to > know what is meant by the full connotations of symbol. One might argue that > neither Vygotsky nor Bruner really knew with clarity what they respectively > meant by function and symbol (distinct from sign) -- it was part of their > exploration. > > It is not that the "genetic law" is wrong per se, in my view, rather that > care needs to be taken in differentiating exactly what is being referred > to. In this view I see no contradiction between this law and the principles > of radical constructivism (which, to me, are rather obvious). The > clarification of inner dialogue, for instance, may be exemplified as a > dialogue between two perspectives that is no different (logically) between > a dialogue between two individuals, as exemplified by Pask's p-individual. > Hence in the realm of invention Vygotsky's genetic law may apply equally to > the "external" social plane as to the "internal" one. One needs to be clear > about what one means by internal-external and to heed the functional > possibilities from bootstrapping. This leads to a rejection of a naive > application of "all new psychological processes originating from outside", > but not from a sophisticated application. > > Best, > Huw > > On 12 April 2018 at 07:25, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > ps. Addition to this comment from me above: > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes > > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic > with > > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? > From > > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, > > I'm not sure. > > > > On page 49, FN 31 Michael cites 2 papers about the emergence of signs > from > > hands on science. This seems to me to be compatible with Bruner's > approach > > which he summed up with the slogan "doing with images makes symbols" and > > also with Seymour's "object to think with" even though he didn't spell > out > > the signs when he said that. > > > > My speculation here (to be shot down probably); Michael Roth's theory and > > Papert / Bruner theory cover the same ground and reach similar > conclusions > > but they have different names > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > hi Michael, > > > > > > > not so much "socially constructed." > > > > > > ok, sorry for incorrect summary of your ideas, I guess the construction > > is > > > so hard wired into me that I didn't notice the misrepresentation > > > > > > > before there was culture, before we used tools, where > > > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > > constructivists say that we use to construct? > > > > > > Well, the hand is a tool and Engels essay "The part played by labour in > > > the transition from ape to man" is one you would know about. > > > > > > > eclecticism > > > > > > Thanks for the Leontev reference. I have read a bit and will read some > > > more before commenting. > > > > > > The reason I'm eclectic is because I read the various learning theories > > > and find some bits are useful for my teaching practice while other bits > > are > > > not. I'm very impressed by your book in its effort to develop what I > > call a > > > unified learning theory but it doesn't cover all the bases for me to be > > > fully persuaded. > > > > > > Also some of the critiques you make, eg. of constructivism, don't match > > my > > > understanding of what they stand for. The critiques in your book are > > > directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / > > > Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 of your book it didn't sound like the > > Piaget > > > that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s when > > > Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science curricula > > > were developed around his ideas. > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > the > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > > world" (51) > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > *incorrectly > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > *misconceptions > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > wide > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > incorrect, > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > pass > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > child's different view of the world. > > > > > > The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called > > > constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal > > > constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some > time > > > working with Piaget). This had real life application in the development > > of > > > logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids > > would > > > build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo > > > programming language and this would change/develop their minds inside. > > > > > > I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty due > > to > > > the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I > have > > > found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn. > > > > > > Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and > tapped > > > into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how do > > you > > > draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the students > > to > > > direct him / her to draw a square. > > > Student: "walk forward" > > > Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward > > > Student: forward > > > Teacher: How far? > > > Student: forward 50 > > > etc. etc. > > > This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles (right > > > 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and > > asks > > > students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code eventually > > > becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90] > > > > > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > > > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images > makes > > > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic > > with > > > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? > > From > > > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic > part, > > > I'm not sure. > > > > > > (my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the > > > internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating what > I > > > said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be > denied > > > because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / > mind > > > activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body") > > > > > > It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / > > constructionism > > > that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into other > > > learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was some > > > discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. > > I'll > > > put some links here for completion and my own convenience > > > https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards- > > > fingernail-definition-of.html > > > > > > The funny thing was that each new learning theory I looked at offered > > > something useful to me as a practicing teacher. I won't go into more > > detail > > > at this point, there is enough here already for discussion. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:27 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > >> Hi Bill, > > >> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book is > > that > > >> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and > > this > > >> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > > "every > > >> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > > >> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was > the > > >> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > >> > > >> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > > species > > >> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, > where > > >> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > >> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > > construct > > >> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or fishing > > for > > >> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words > > when > > >> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > > >> building anything like "meaning?" > > >> > > >> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > before > > >> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > >> > > >> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > > listened > > >> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > > >> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > > psychologists > > >> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > > >> Personality*). > > >> > > >> Cheers, > > >> Michael > > >> > > >> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > wrote: > > >> > > >> > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that all > > >> > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying > > >> > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting > > and > > >> > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > > >> individual > > >> > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it words, > > >> > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in the > > >> > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > > >> internal > > >> > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a > > >> > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas > the > > >> real > > >> > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > >> > > > >> > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > >> > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > >> > > > >> > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > > whether > > >> > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > > practice, > > >> > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An alternative > > >> > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > teachers > > >> under > > >> > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > works?. > > >> > > > >> > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. > See > > >> > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > >> > > > >> > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > > putting > > >> > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour Papert's > > >> > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > > something > > >> > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > > enactivism > > >> > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this > list > > >> could > > >> > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible to > > >> develop > > >> > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > > >> that. As > > >> > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there is > > no > > >> > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > >> > > > >> > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > attempt > > to > > >> > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a unfied > > >> > learning theory. > > >> > > > >> > > > > > > > > > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Thu Apr 12 16:57:48 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:57:48 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Being careful again to distinguish various aspects, the notion of a projection of one's own understandings to the capabilities of others seems quite logical[1, p.7] when one is thinking in terms of agency, i.e. one's perspective of the other's performance. That is, if one could understand the capabilities of others in detail, one would have them available oneself. But that is not to say that, e.g., the child does not know about an adult's activities that go beyond their competence. Notions of imputing different capabilities to others would be rather advanced (i.e. developed) from this perspective. But note this is not making the other a construction of the self, it is endeavouring to understand the other by means of one's faculties. One could equally take another perspective of the other by dint of one's witnessing their habitual behaviour. Once one understands the variation in others, as agents, there is more scope. Similarly to recognise a sophisticated relation between self and other is not problematic with RC. It is simple enough to recognise that one has arrived at a sophisticated conception. On a similar basis non-identification with one's own thoughts is rather advanced. Two points seem to be interesting here. The first, that that which is regarded as non-self may previously have been "constructed" by self, e.g. as with observing a habit. Hence imputing the sophisticated result ("I am not my thought") as being the original state of things may be rather inaccurate. Secondly, that the thought may be understood as a perspective, a self-consistent circuit of consequences (or associations). I am unclear what you mean by "elemental individuals". I would say that the recognition of the notion of individuality is learnt or discovered. More broadly, and not having read that much of Glaserfield, I am happy with the central tenets [e.g. 2]. How Glaserfield builds on those is, of course, available to scrutiny in terms of consistency and thoroughness. In my experience, for activity and constructivist approaches selves and objects are rather peripheral entities used to locate phenomena of interest. What activity and constructivist approaches focus upon are processes of doing. The significance of the individual manifests as competencies, memories etc. Re ontology, EvG describes constructivism as goal-directed: "Constructivism necessarily begins with the (intuitively confirmed) assumption that all cognitive activity takes place within the experiential world of a goal-directed consciousness" [2]. I doubt v. much whether this can be adequately thought of as Newtonian, seeing as RC is related to the "cybernetics of cybernetics" which recognises the role of the observer as foundational, and where accounts of observing one's thoughts etc is quite commonplace. In my experience many authors seem to over step the mark with respect to categorisation of philosophical positions. Conceiving of the circumstances in terms of systems can often help penetrate that fog. Re positioning, the physics metaphor was a reach for me, but perhaps the notion of sophisticated conceptions applies. Particularly in the sense that any (cognitive or "genesis of selves") theory would do well to be able to explain itself, i.e. how one arrives at the theory in terms of the theory. Best, Huw [1] https://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/EvG/papers/122.pdf [2] http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/EvG/papers/070.1.pdf On 12 April 2018 at 17:34, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Huw, > > I can't see how the radical constructivist position (e..g von Glasersfeld) > has anything in common with a radically social take, here I do not mean the > "social constructivist" version, which is just adding external relations > between elemental individuals (see, e.g., how Glaserfeld makes the "other" > a construction of the Self, which externalizes itself as a model on which > the notion of the other is based). > In a vast part of the philosophical (and poetic) literature, coming from > very different traditions, the Self is another (Soi-m?me comme un autre, as > Ric?ur says, or Rimbaud's famous aphorism, "Je est un autre" etc. etc) > > I am trying to understand where to place myself so that these differences > become the same (like in physics, where the simultaneity is a question of > position). > > But my hunch is that the ontology is object-oriented, and that the > presuppositions are Newtonian-Cartesian-Kantian. > > Michael > > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 8:59 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > Bill, Michael, and others > > > > The problem with these pithy statements is that they do not define their > > terms. For Vygotsky's "general genetic law" one needs to know what is > meant > > by a function, process, etc, and also an appreciation for different forms > > of "internal": the internal of operationalisation, in which there is an > > atrophy of supporting external signs that are replaced by internal signs, > > contrasted with the internal dialogue often entailed in thought (though > > granted internal dialogue may have its own externalised progenitors). For > > Bruner's (Kay's summative) "doing with images makes symbols", one needs > to > > know what is meant by the full connotations of symbol. One might argue > that > > neither Vygotsky nor Bruner really knew with clarity what they > respectively > > meant by function and symbol (distinct from sign) -- it was part of their > > exploration. > > > > It is not that the "genetic law" is wrong per se, in my view, rather that > > care needs to be taken in differentiating exactly what is being referred > > to. In this view I see no contradiction between this law and the > principles > > of radical constructivism (which, to me, are rather obvious). The > > clarification of inner dialogue, for instance, may be exemplified as a > > dialogue between two perspectives that is no different (logically) > between > > a dialogue between two individuals, as exemplified by Pask's > p-individual. > > Hence in the realm of invention Vygotsky's genetic law may apply equally > to > > the "external" social plane as to the "internal" one. One needs to be > clear > > about what one means by internal-external and to heed the functional > > possibilities from bootstrapping. This leads to a rejection of a naive > > application of "all new psychological processes originating from > outside", > > but not from a sophisticated application. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On 12 April 2018 at 07:25, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > > > ps. Addition to this comment from me above: > > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > > > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images > makes > > > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic > > with > > > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? > > From > > > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic > part, > > > I'm not sure. > > > > > > On page 49, FN 31 Michael cites 2 papers about the emergence of signs > > from > > > hands on science. This seems to me to be compatible with Bruner's > > approach > > > which he summed up with the slogan "doing with images makes symbols" > and > > > also with Seymour's "object to think with" even though he didn't spell > > out > > > the signs when he said that. > > > > > > My speculation here (to be shot down probably); Michael Roth's theory > and > > > Papert / Bruner theory cover the same ground and reach similar > > conclusions > > > but they have different names > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Bill Kerr > wrote: > > > > > > > hi Michael, > > > > > > > > > not so much "socially constructed." > > > > > > > > ok, sorry for incorrect summary of your ideas, I guess the > construction > > > is > > > > so hard wired into me that I didn't notice the misrepresentation > > > > > > > > > before there was culture, before we used tools, where > > > > were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > > > constructivists say that we use to construct? > > > > > > > > Well, the hand is a tool and Engels essay "The part played by labour > in > > > > the transition from ape to man" is one you would know about. > > > > > > > > > eclecticism > > > > > > > > Thanks for the Leontev reference. I have read a bit and will read > some > > > > more before commenting. > > > > > > > > The reason I'm eclectic is because I read the various learning > theories > > > > and find some bits are useful for my teaching practice while other > bits > > > are > > > > not. I'm very impressed by your book in its effort to develop what I > > > call a > > > > unified learning theory but it doesn't cover all the bases for me to > be > > > > fully persuaded. > > > > > > > > Also some of the critiques you make, eg. of constructivism, don't > match > > > my > > > > understanding of what they stand for. The critiques in your book are > > > > directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / > > > > Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 of your book it didn't sound like the > > > Piaget > > > > that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s > when > > > > Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science > curricula > > > > were developed around his ideas. > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > > the > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > surrounding > > > > world" (51) > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > *incorrectly > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > > knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > *misconceptions > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > > wide > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > incorrect, > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > > pass > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > > child's different view of the world. > > > > > > > > The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called > > > > constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal > > > > constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some > > time > > > > working with Piaget). This had real life application in the > development > > > of > > > > logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids > > > would > > > > build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo > > > > programming language and this would change/develop their minds > inside. > > > > > > > > I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty > due > > > to > > > > the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I > > have > > > > found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn. > > > > > > > > Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and > > tapped > > > > into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how > do > > > you > > > > draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the > students > > > to > > > > direct him / her to draw a square. > > > > Student: "walk forward" > > > > Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward > > > > Student: forward > > > > Teacher: How far? > > > > Student: forward 50 > > > > etc. etc. > > > > This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles > (right > > > > 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and > > > asks > > > > students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code > eventually > > > > becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90] > > > > > > > > Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and > > > > incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images > > makes > > > > symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the > kinesthenic > > > with > > > > the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning > theory? > > > From > > > > my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic > > part, > > > > I'm not sure. > > > > > > > > (my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the > > > > internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating > what > > I > > > > said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be > > denied > > > > because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / > > mind > > > > activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body") > > > > > > > > It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / > > > constructionism > > > > that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into > other > > > > learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was > some > > > > discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. > > > I'll > > > > put some links here for completion and my own convenience > > > > https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards- > > > > fingernail-definition-of.html > > > > > > > > The funny thing was that each new learning theory I looked at offered > > > > something useful to me as a practicing teacher. I won't go into more > > > detail > > > > at this point, there is enough here already for discussion. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 9:27 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > >> Hi Bill, > > > >> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the book > is > > > that > > > >> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is social, and > > > this > > > >> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, because > > > "every > > > >> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between two > > > >> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, was > > the > > > >> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > > > >> > > > >> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at our > > > species > > > >> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used tools, > > where > > > >> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > > > >> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > > > construct > > > >> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > fishing > > > for > > > >> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first sound-words > > > when > > > >> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool for > > > >> building anything like "meaning?" > > > >> > > > >> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning from > > before > > > >> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning (ontogenesis). > > > >> > > > >> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if we > > > listened > > > >> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic soup > > > >> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > > > psychologists > > > >> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. Consciousness. > > > >> Personality*). > > > >> > > > >> Cheers, > > > >> Michael > > > >> > > > >> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr > > wrote: > > > >> > > > >> > One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues that > all > > > >> > knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > paying > > > >> > detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > detecting > > > and > > > >> > evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced to > > > >> individual > > > >> > actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > words, > > > >> > mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not in > the > > > >> > original but because it is a current interest of mine). Moreover > > > >> internal > > > >> > representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would > be a > > > >> > capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas > > the > > > >> real > > > >> > deal is an integrated thinking body. > > > >> > > > > >> > This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > > > >> > behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > > > >> > > > > >> > The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one of > > > whether > > > >> > and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > > > practice, > > > >> > for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > alternative > > > >> > epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > > teachers > > > >> under > > > >> > pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > > works?. > > > >> > > > > >> > I believe I am better read on learning theory than most teachers. > > See > > > >> > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > > > >> > > > > >> > Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach to > > > putting > > > >> > learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > Papert's > > > >> > constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > > > something > > > >> > from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > > > enactivism > > > >> > and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in this > > list > > > >> could > > > >> > be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not possible > to > > > >> develop > > > >> > a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex for > > > >> that. As > > > >> > Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is there > is > > > no > > > >> > trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's learn. > > > >> > > > > >> > One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > > attempt > > > to > > > >> > put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a > unfied > > > >> > learning theory. > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From ewall@umich.edu Fri Apr 13 17:08:48 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 19:08:48 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> Message-ID: <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> Bill The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who have interesting takes on some of this. Ed Wall "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > > Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is > "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers > understand. Michael > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > >> Michael wrote: >> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >> >> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the poor. >> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >> >> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >> not >>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as a >>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new things. >>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>> >>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >> concerning >>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>> >>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the French >>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, xvii). >>> >>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist as >>> relationship >>> >>> m >>> >>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >> wrote: >>> >>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>> >>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>> >>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>> >>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>> Emergence. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>> of >>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >> manifestation >>>> of a >>>>> relationship. >>>>> >>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >> basis >>> of >>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>> example >>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>> >>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>> that >>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>> >>>>> m >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>> >>>>>> a >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>> the >>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >> of >>>>>> their >>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >> effect, >>>> like >>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >> that >>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >> construct >>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> m >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>> and >>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>> explain >>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >> *constructions* >>> of >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>> book >>>> is >>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >> social, >>>> and >>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>> because >>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>> two >>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>> was >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>> our >>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>> tools, >>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>> fishing >>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>> sound-words >>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>> for >>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >> from >>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >> we >>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>> soup >>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >> that >>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>> detecting >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >> to >>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >> in >>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >> Moreover >>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >> would >>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>> whereas >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >> of >>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>> teachers. >>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >> to >>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >> this >>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >> possible >>>> to >>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>> for >>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>> there >>>> is >>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> From billkerr@gmail.com Fri Apr 13 21:07:44 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 13:37:44 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> Message-ID: Thanks Ed, A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington that went into that . Cheers, Bill On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > Bill > > The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an > ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice > typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I > looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks > otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the > going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably > available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like > this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman > and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on > Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who > have interesting takes on some of this. > > Ed Wall > > "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of > a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > > > > > > On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is > > "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers > > understand. Michael > > > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > > >> Michael wrote: > >> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > >> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > >> social in the strong sense is not a construction. > >> > >> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > >> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! > >> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the > poor. > >> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? > >> > >> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > >>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is > >> not > >>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. > >>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as > a > >>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new > things. > >>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > >>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new > >>> language that also provides a reason for this language. > >>> > >>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates > >> concerning > >>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the > >>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. > >>> > >>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the > French > >>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's > >>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the > >>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, > xvii). > >>> > >>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the > >>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist > as > >>> relationship > >>> > >>> m > >>> > >>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > >>> > >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden > >> wrote: > >>> > >>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > >>>> > >>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > >>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > >>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > >>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > >>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > >>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > >>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > >>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > >>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > >>>> > >>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > >>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > >>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > >>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > >>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. > >>>> > >>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > >>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > >>>> Emergence. > >>>> > >>>> Andy > >>>> > >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>> Andy Blunden > >>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect > >>> of > >>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a > >> manifestation > >>>> of a > >>>>> relationship. > >>>>> > >>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the > >> basis > >>> of > >>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the > >>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an > >>> example > >>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). > >>>>> > >>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism > >>>> that > >>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > >>>>> > >>>>> m > >>>>> > >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > >>>> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > >>>>>> slightly different words. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> a > >>>>>> > >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was > >>> the > >>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > >>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual > >>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, > >>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process > >> of > >>>>>> their > >>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" > >>> (pp.20-21) > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate > >> effect, > >>>> like > >>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision > >>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of > >> that > >>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't > >> construct > >>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > >>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> m > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden > >>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > >>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis > >>> and > >>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to > >>> explain > >>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as > >> *constructions* > >>> of > >>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>> mind. m > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < > >> andyb@marxists.org> > >>>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > >>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > >>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. > >>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > >>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > >>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > >>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, > >>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the > >>> book > >>>> is > >>>>>>>>>> that > >>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is > >> social, > >>>> and > >>>>>>>> this > >>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, > >>> because > >>>>>>>> "every > >>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between > >>> two > >>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, > >>> was > >>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at > >>> our > >>>>>>>>>> species > >>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used > >>> tools, > >>>>>>>> where > >>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid > >>>>>>>> construct > >>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or > >>>> fishing > >>>>>>>> for > >>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > >>>> sound-words > >>>>>>>> when > >>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool > >>> for > >>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning > >> from > >>>>>>>> before > >>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning > >>> (ontogenesis). > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if > >> we > >>>>>>>> listened > >>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic > >>> soup > >>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > >>>>>>>> psychologists > >>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. > >> Consciousness. > >>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, > >>>>>>>>>>> Michael > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>> > >>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues > >> that > >>>> all > >>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, > >>>> paying > >>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > >>>> detecting > >>>>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced > >> to > >>>>>>>>>> individual > >>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it > >>>> words, > >>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not > >> in > >>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). > >> Moreover > >>>>>>>>>> internal > >>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that > >> would > >>>> be a > >>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity > >>> whereas > >>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>> real > >>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they > >>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one > >> of > >>>>>>>> whether > >>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in > >>>>>>>> practice, > >>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > >>>> alternative > >>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real > >>>>>> teachers > >>>>>>>>>> under > >>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what > >>>>>> works?. > >>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most > >>> teachers. > >>>>>> See > >>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach > >> to > >>>>>>>> putting > >>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > >>>> Papert's > >>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, > >>>>>>>> something > >>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s > >>>>>>>> enactivism > >>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in > >> this > >>>>>> list > >>>>>>>>>> could > >>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not > >> possible > >>>> to > >>>>>>>>>> develop > >>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex > >>> for > >>>>>>>>>> that. As > >>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is > >>> there > >>>> is > >>>>>>>> no > >>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's > >>> learn. > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious > >>>>>> attempt > >>>>>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a > >>>> unfied > >>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >> > > From andyb@marxists.org Fri Apr 13 22:34:10 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 15:34:10 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] the ancients and the moderns In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> Message-ID: <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> Bill, I don't have any particular recommendation for your reading, but I have noticed a strange thing about how we view our intellectual history. There is no direct connection between modern (i.e., post-Copernicus) European thinking and the ancient Greeks. The only connections were mediated by the Romans, and after the decline of the Roman Empire by the Roman Church, and the Islamic world, and the heritage we received by this route was entirely scriptural. The legacy received via the Roman Church was of course a priestly one. So I question whether there is any continuity in "world view" between the Greeks and the moderns, so the question of a "change" is problematic. So far as I can see modern, bourgeois consciousness arose out of the feudal societies which restored themselves after the Romans left. It is true that these societies were not particularly literate, so written records are mostly owed to the monasteries. I am no historian, Bill, and maybe I'm missing something? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 14/04/2018 2:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > Thanks Ed, > > A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? > > I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am > interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and > the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington > that went into that . > > Cheers, Bill > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > >> Bill >> >> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an >> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice >> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I >> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks >> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the >> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably >> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like >> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman >> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on >> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who >> have interesting takes on some of this. >> >> Ed Wall >> >> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of >> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >> >> >> >> >>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is >>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers >>> understand. Michael >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>> >>>> Michael wrote: >>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>> >>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the >> poor. >>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >>>> >>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >>>> not >>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as >> a >>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new >> things. >>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>>>> >>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >>>> concerning >>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>> >>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the >> French >>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, >> xvii). >>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist >> as >>>>> relationship >>>>> >>>>> m >>>>> >>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> wrote: >>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>>>> >>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>>>> >>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>>>> >>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>>>> Emergence. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>>>> of >>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >>>> manifestation >>>>>> of a >>>>>>> relationship. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >>>> basis >>>>> of >>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>>>> example >>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>>>> that >>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>>>> >>>>>>> m >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> a >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>>>> the >>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >>>> of >>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>>>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >>>> effect, >>>>>> like >>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >>>> that >>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >>>> construct >>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>>>> explain >>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >>>> *constructions* >>>>> of >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >>>> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>>>> book >>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >>>> social, >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>>>> because >>>>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>>>> two >>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>>>> was >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>>>> our >>>>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>>>> tools, >>>>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>>>> fishing >>>>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>>>> sound-words >>>>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >>>> from >>>>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>>>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >>>> we >>>>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>>>> soup >>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >>>> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >>>> that >>>>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>>>> detecting >>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >>>> in >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >>>> Moreover >>>>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >>>> would >>>>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>>>> whereas >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >>>> of >>>>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>>>> teachers. >>>>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >>>> to >>>>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >>>> this >>>>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >>>> possible >>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>>>> there >>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>>>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>> >> From ewall@umich.edu Sat Apr 14 12:43:44 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:43:44 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: thoughts on Mathematics of Mathematics by Wolff-Michael Roth In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> Message-ID: Bill The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics by Hopkins as an ebook is only about $10 if you have a Kindle (and about $40 for hard copy). I would say that this is quite relevant to your interests.. You should also be able to pick up Klein?s book Greek Mathematical Though and the Origin of Algebra for about $10. The book by Lachterman is more than nice, but used copies are a little pricey.. You might find Hoyrup in Measure, Number, and Weight useful (he has some interesting things to say about the transition from Greek to Arab to European) and then there is are a number of people who have looked closely at ?geometric? proof as practiced by the Greeks; eg Reviel Netz (his work is now running in the $70s). I personally feel that I would rather have a good Samaritan give me a copy of Lachterman than a copy of the Foundations of Mathematics (I have read all of Livingston?s stuff and from a certain perspective it is interesting). Klein, by the way, does discuss the change in word view - mathematically that is - between Greeks and Moderns. Hopkins nicely expands on Klein?s thoughts versus those of Husserl. Lachterman and Netz come from other angles. Then there is the work of Kay O?Halloran "Mathematical Discourse: Language, Symbolism and Visual Images? which provides another slant. There is quite a bit more, but probably of less relevance to you. Oh, going back and looking at the actual mathematics of that time is interesting and there is quite a bit available. Ed "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > On Apr 13, 2018, at 11:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > > Thanks Ed, > > A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? > > I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am > interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and > the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington > that went into that . > > Cheers, Bill > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > >> Bill >> >> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an >> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice >> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I >> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks >> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the >> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably >> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like >> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman >> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on >> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who >> have interesting takes on some of this. >> >> Ed Wall >> >> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of >> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >> >> >> >> >>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is >>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers >>> understand. Michael >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>> >>>> Michael wrote: >>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>> >>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the >> poor. >>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >>>> >>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >>>> not >>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as >> a >>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new >> things. >>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>>>> >>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >>>> concerning >>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>> >>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the >> French >>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, >> xvii). >>>>> >>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist >> as >>>>> relationship >>>>> >>>>> m >>>>> >>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>>>> >>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>>>> >>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>>>> >>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>>>> Emergence. >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>>>> of >>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >>>> manifestation >>>>>> of a >>>>>>> relationship. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >>>> basis >>>>> of >>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>>>> example >>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>>>> that >>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>>>> >>>>>>> m >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> a >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>>>> the >>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >>>> of >>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>>>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >>>> effect, >>>>>> like >>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >>>> that >>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >>>> construct >>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>>>> explain >>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >>>> *constructions* >>>>> of >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >>>> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>>>> book >>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >>>> social, >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>>>> because >>>>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>>>> two >>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>>>> was >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>>>> our >>>>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>>>> tools, >>>>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>>>> fishing >>>>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>>>> sound-words >>>>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >>>> from >>>>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>>>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >>>> we >>>>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>>>> soup >>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >>>> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>> >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >>>> that >>>>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>>>> detecting >>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >>>> in >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >>>> Moreover >>>>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >>>> would >>>>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>>>> whereas >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >>>> of >>>>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>>>> teachers. >>>>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >>>> to >>>>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >>>> this >>>>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >>>> possible >>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>>>> there >>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>>>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >> >> From ewall@umich.edu Sat Apr 14 12:53:16 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:53:16 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: the ancients and the moderns In-Reply-To: <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> Message-ID: <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> Andy While there is much in what you say, a good bit of Greek mathematics was mediated through the Arabs. There is plenty of historical evidence. As regards it being mainly scripture, Plato has Socrates do considerable mathematics. Jacob Klein makes the point fairly well that there isn?t continuity re mathematics (ancient to modern); however that has little to do (in a sense) with the Roman Church. It has more to do with European adaptions of number. Nevertheless, my experience thinking in and outside mathematics classrooms, indicates a naive Greek view of number is alive and well. Ed "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > On Apr 14, 2018, at 12:34 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Bill, I don't have any particular recommendation for your > reading, but I have noticed a strange thing about how we > view our intellectual history. > > There is no direct connection between modern (i.e., > post-Copernicus) European thinking and the ancient Greeks. > The only connections were mediated by the Romans, and after > the decline of the Roman Empire by the Roman Church, and the > Islamic world, and the heritage we received by this route > was entirely scriptural. The legacy received via the Roman > Church was of course a priestly one. > > So I question whether there is any continuity in "world > view" between the Greeks and the moderns, so the question of > a "change" is problematic. So far as I can see modern, > bourgeois consciousness arose out of the feudal societies > which restored themselves after the Romans left. It is true > that these societies were not particularly literate, so > written records are mostly owed to the monasteries. > > I am no historian, Bill, and maybe I'm missing something? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 14/04/2018 2:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >> Thanks Ed, >> >> A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >> Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? >> >> I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am >> interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and >> the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington >> that went into that . >> >> Cheers, Bill >> >> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: >> >>> Bill >>> >>> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an >>> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice >>> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I >>> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks >>> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the >>> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably >>> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like >>> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman >>> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on >>> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who >>> have interesting takes on some of this. >>> >>> Ed Wall >>> >>> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of >>> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is >>>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers >>>> understand. Michael >>>> >>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>>> >>>>> Michael wrote: >>>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>> >>>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >>>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the >>> poor. >>>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >>>>> not >>>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as >>> a >>>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new >>> things. >>>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>>>>> >>>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >>>>> concerning >>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>>> >>>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the >>> French >>>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, >>> xvii). >>>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist >>> as >>>>>> relationship >>>>>> >>>>>> m >>>>>> >>>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>>>>> Emergence. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>>>>> of >>>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >>>>> manifestation >>>>>>> of a >>>>>>>> relationship. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >>>>> basis >>>>>> of >>>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>>>>> example >>>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>>>>> that >>>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> a >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >>>>> of >>>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>>>>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >>>>> effect, >>>>>>> like >>>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >>>>> that >>>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>>>>> explain >>>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >>>>> *constructions* >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >>>>> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>>>>> book >>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >>>>> social, >>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>>>>> because >>>>>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>>>>> two >>>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>>>>> was >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>>>>> our >>>>>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>>>>> tools, >>>>>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>>>>> fishing >>>>>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>>>>> sound-words >>>>>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >>>>> from >>>>>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>>>>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >>>>> we >>>>>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>>>>> soup >>>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >>>>> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >>>>> that >>>>>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>>>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>>>>> detecting >>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>>>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >>>>> in >>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >>>>> Moreover >>>>>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >>>>> would >>>>>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>>>>> whereas >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>>>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>>>>> teachers. >>>>>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>>>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >>>>> this >>>>>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >>>>> possible >>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>>>>> there >>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>>>>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>>>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>> > From smago@uga.edu Wed Apr 11 13:06:02 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 20:06:02 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Spring 2018 issue of JoLLE now available! Message-ID: http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/current-issue/ Dear colleagues, please help yourself to any and all articles and videos in the just-released spring, 2018 issue of the Journal of Language and Literacy Education. From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sat Apr 14 15:38:34 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 07:38:34 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: the ancients and the moderns In-Reply-To: <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> Message-ID: Andy-- I too am not a historian. But my stepfather, Burt Stein, was a very good one, and when he died in 1996 my mother and I spent about a year editing his "History of India" for Blackwell. I learned a lot about the historian's craft (and also that of the writer--so for example I learned that it is not really possible to write a history as Burt wanted it to be done, from the present to the past). In politics and in world outlook, Burt was essentially an anarchist, although he had been a Marxist in his youth (he organized a steel mill in South Chicago with the help of some Trotskyists and then went to University of Chicago on the G.I. Bill, hoping to become a China historian, but was thwarted by McCarthyism). So he had this strong tendency to view history as the story of the emergence of a kind of imagined anti-society he thought of as the State, alongside the true, real society, which he called Community. He told the story of India as a story of several thousand years of undifferentiated State and Community, then a few hundred years of side-by-side States and Communities, then the colonial project, which was essentially a State as Community, and the current period of naked communal violence, with its roots in the anti-colonial struggle, which Burt thought of as the "Community" (i.e. the Muslim Umma, or the village caste nexus) as State. As you can see, Burt was a historian of what Braudel called "la longue duree"--he wasn't interested in whether a king was the biological offspring of the previous king or not: for him, dynastic succession, and even state formation, was gossip and trivia and not the stuff of history. History was the story of the Community, not the State. Indian history was essentially tragic, and tragedy is surely an idea which DOES connect us with the ancients, because Indian history was the story of how a real Community was strangled with an umbilical cord by its evil ideal twin, an imagined State (at first "segmentary" and then "centralized"). Let me give you a little example of the way in which Burt thought. The Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity sometime in the early fourth century, and from that date we consider that the Roman Empire was "Christian" (even though Christians existed throughout the Roman Civil Service before that date, and pagans were very powerful afterwards). If you want a gossip-and-trivia link between the ancients and the moderns, the conversion of Constantine and the subsequent Byzantine empire, rather than the fall of Rome, is the pivotal event, and it's a story of continuity rather than rupture. That is, actually, much the way that European history looks to Russian Orthodox believers! But of course it's not realistic to believe that the beliefs of the emperor are immediately shared by every member in all the communities of the empire. So for the medieval period, paganism and Christianity co-exist, and we see clear evidence of this in Beowulf and elsewhere. Even the Catholic Church, and the monastic regime you refer to, is an example of this syncretic period of side-by-side Theocracy and Witchcraft, because medieval monasteries seem to have operated much as the monasteries I visited in Tibet did--they accepted "donations" from the people in return for tolerating, endorsing, and even enabling practices which were essentially shamanistic. I don't know if Constantine really dreamed of a Christian empire; he seems to have converted for political reasons more than anything else. But the Jesuits certainly did when they tried to convert the Chinese emperor. In any case, even at the level of the State, that dream only really started to come true with Gutenberg. Luther used MUSIC as much as he used printing, because he was fully cognizant that the target audience was semi-literate. The Reformation, not the conversion of Constantine, was the real moment of Christianizing Europe. In the work of Ellizabeth Gaskell, who was Marx's contemporary, we can read that even in the nineteenth century there were shamanistic practices side-by-side with those of the Church. From Burt's view of history, that of the "longue duree", there are no real ruptures, because history is not the story of the State or the Church: State and Church are only nightmares that rattle the breast of a snoring Community. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 4:53 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > Andy > > While there is much in what you say, a good bit of Greek mathematics > was mediated through the Arabs. There is plenty of historical evidence. As > regards it being mainly scripture, Plato has Socrates do considerable > mathematics. Jacob Klein makes the point fairly well that there isn?t > continuity re mathematics (ancient to modern); however that has little to > do (in a sense) with the Roman Church. It has more to do with European > adaptions of number. Nevertheless, my experience thinking in and outside > mathematics classrooms, indicates a naive Greek view of number is alive and > well. > > Ed > > "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of > a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > > > > > > On Apr 14, 2018, at 12:34 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > > > Bill, I don't have any particular recommendation for your > > reading, but I have noticed a strange thing about how we > > view our intellectual history. > > > > There is no direct connection between modern (i.e., > > post-Copernicus) European thinking and the ancient Greeks. > > The only connections were mediated by the Romans, and after > > the decline of the Roman Empire by the Roman Church, and the > > Islamic world, and the heritage we received by this route > > was entirely scriptural. The legacy received via the Roman > > Church was of course a priestly one. > > > > So I question whether there is any continuity in "world > > view" between the Greeks and the moderns, so the question of > > a "change" is problematic. So far as I can see modern, > > bourgeois consciousness arose out of the feudal societies > > which restored themselves after the Romans left. It is true > > that these societies were not particularly literate, so > > written records are mostly owed to the monasteries. > > > > I am no historian, Bill, and maybe I'm missing something? > > > > Andy > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 14/04/2018 2:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: > >> Thanks Ed, > >> > >> A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations > of > >> Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? > >> > >> I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am > >> interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and > >> the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin > Farrington > >> that went into that . > >> > >> Cheers, Bill > >> > >> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > >> > >>> Bill > >>> > >>> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an > >>> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a > nice > >>> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I > think I > >>> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael > thinks > >>> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever > the > >>> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably > >>> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you > like > >>> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by > Lachterman > >>> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which > takes on > >>> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who > >>> have interesting takes on some of this. > >>> > >>> Ed Wall > >>> > >>> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The > opposite of > >>> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >>>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is > >>>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers > >>>> understand. Michael > >>>> > >>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr > wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> Michael wrote: > >>>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning > >>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and > the > >>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. > >>>>> > >>>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of > >>>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, > ouch! > >>>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the > >>> poor. > >>>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? > >>>>> > >>>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < > >>>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It > is > >>>>> not > >>>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something > new. > >>>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson > as > >>> a > >>>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new > >>> things. > >>>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, > >>>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a > new > >>>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates > >>>>> concerning > >>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and > the > >>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the > >>> French > >>>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. > Mead's > >>>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at > the > >>>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, > >>> xvii). > >>>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that > the > >>>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not > exist > >>> as > >>>>>> relationship > >>>>>> > >>>>>> m > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP > >>>>>> > >>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden > >>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual > >>>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a > >>>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," > >>>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. > >>>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, > >>>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever > >>>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to > >>>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same > >>>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social > >>>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest > >>>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that > >>>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest > >>>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern > >>>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be > >>>>>>> Emergence. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an > effect > >>>>>> of > >>>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a > >>>>> manifestation > >>>>>>> of a > >>>>>>>> relationship. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the > >>>>> basis > >>>>>> of > >>>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., > the > >>>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an > >>>>>> example > >>>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the > intellectualism > >>>>>>> that > >>>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> m > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden > > >>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so > >>>>>>>>> slightly different words. > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> a > >>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... > was > >>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the > >>>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a > continual > >>>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic > interface, > >>>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single > process > >>>>> of > >>>>>>>>> their > >>>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" > >>>>>> (pp.20-21) > >>>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate > >>>>> effect, > >>>>>>> like > >>>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision > >>>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of > >>>>> that > >>>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't > >>>>> construct > >>>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, > >>>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> m > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden < > andyb@marxists.org> > >>>>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human > >>>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. > Anthropogenesis > >>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to > >>>>>> explain > >>>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as > >>>>> *constructions* > >>>>>> of > >>>>>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>> mind. m > >>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < > >>>>> andyb@marxists.org> > >>>>>>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings > >>>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count > >>>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word > >>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers > >>>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden > >>>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > >>>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in > the > >>>>>> book > >>>>>>> is > >>>>>>>>>>>>> that > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is > >>>>> social, > >>>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>> this > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, > >>>>>> because > >>>>>>>>>>> "every > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation > between > >>>>>> two > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is > social, > >>>>>> was > >>>>>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in > individuals... > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look > at > >>>>>> our > >>>>>>>>>>>>> species > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used > >>>>>> tools, > >>>>>>>>>>> where > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a > hominid > >>>>>>>>>>> construct > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots > or > >>>>>>> fishing > >>>>>>>>>>> for > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first > >>>>>>> sound-words > >>>>>>>>>>> when > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and > tool > >>>>>> for > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning > >>>>> from > >>>>>>>>>>> before > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning > >>>>>> (ontogenesis). > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further > if > >>>>> we > >>>>>>>>>>> listened > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the > "eclectic > >>>>>> soup > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that > >>>>>>>>>>> psychologists > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. > >>>>> Consciousness. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr < > billkerr@gmail.com > >>>>>>>>> wrote: > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues > >>>>> that > >>>>>>> all > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that > ethnomethodology, > >>>>>>> paying > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of > >>>>>>> detecting > >>>>>>>>>>> and > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be > reduced > >>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>>>> individual > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be > it > >>>>>>> words, > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned > not > >>>>> in > >>>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). > >>>>> Moreover > >>>>>>>>>>>>> internal > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that > >>>>> would > >>>>>>> be a > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity > >>>>>> whereas > >>>>>>>>> the > >>>>>>>>>>>>> real > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be > they > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic > one > >>>>> of > >>>>>>>>>>> whether > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a > difference in > >>>>>>>>>>> practice, > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An > >>>>>>> alternative > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to > real > >>>>>>>>> teachers > >>>>>>>>>>>>> under > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of > ?what > >>>>>>>>> works?. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most > >>>>>> teachers. > >>>>>>>>> See > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic > approach > >>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>> putting > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour > >>>>>>> Papert's > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's > cognitivism, > >>>>>>>>>>> something > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy > Clarke?s > >>>>>>>>>>> enactivism > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in > >>>>> this > >>>>>>>>> list > >>>>>>>>>>>>> could > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not > >>>>> possible > >>>>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>>>> develop > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too > complex > >>>>>> for > >>>>>>>>>>>>> that. As > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is > >>>>>> there > >>>>>>> is > >>>>>>>>>>> no > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's > >>>>>> learn. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his > serious > >>>>>>>>> attempt > >>>>>>>>>>> to > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to > be a > >>>>>>> unfied > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>> > > > > From andyb@marxists.org Sat Apr 14 19:31:51 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 12:31:51 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: the ancients and the moderns In-Reply-To: <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> Message-ID: I am sure you are right, Ed, in that the history of mathematics must be in considerable measure one made up of scholars reading each other's work over vast expanses of time and space, and it is all much more complicated than I know. And Greek mathematics reached us not only via the Islamic world, but by the collaboration of Christian and Islamic scholars in Spain, I think. It was you invocation of "world view" which triggered my response. In doing my research for "The Origins of Collective Decision Making" I found that academic historians wrote histories based on texts written by philosophers and it went: Ancient Greece, briefly Pliny, Gaius etc, then Condorcet and the philosophers of the French revolution, skipping blithely over a millennium and a half in which the common people developed and practised methods of collective decision making, upon which the French Philosophers of the 18th century could spin their elaborate and largely puerile and impractical theories. So, I wondered how much Copernicus owed to ancients Greeks who had already tried to measure the diameter of the Earth, and how much he owed to Italian and Dutch lens-makers and other artisans who developed very different approaches to understanding how Nature worked. Probably the "world view" that informed Galileo he owed to medieval Europe rather than Greek, Roman or Islamic scholars. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 15/04/2018 5:53 AM, Edward Wall wrote: > Andy > > While there is much in what you say, a good bit of Greek mathematics was mediated through the Arabs. There is plenty of historical evidence. As regards it being mainly scripture, Plato has Socrates do considerable mathematics. Jacob Klein makes the point fairly well that there isn?t continuity re mathematics (ancient to modern); however that has little to do (in a sense) with the Roman Church. It has more to do with European adaptions of number. Nevertheless, my experience thinking in and outside mathematics classrooms, indicates a naive Greek view of number is alive and well. > > Ed > > "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > > > > >> On Apr 14, 2018, at 12:34 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: >> >> Bill, I don't have any particular recommendation for your >> reading, but I have noticed a strange thing about how we >> view our intellectual history. >> >> There is no direct connection between modern (i.e., >> post-Copernicus) European thinking and the ancient Greeks. >> The only connections were mediated by the Romans, and after >> the decline of the Roman Empire by the Roman Church, and the >> Islamic world, and the heritage we received by this route >> was entirely scriptural. The legacy received via the Roman >> Church was of course a priestly one. >> >> So I question whether there is any continuity in "world >> view" between the Greeks and the moderns, so the question of >> a "change" is problematic. So far as I can see modern, >> bourgeois consciousness arose out of the feudal societies >> which restored themselves after the Romans left. It is true >> that these societies were not particularly literate, so >> written records are mostly owed to the monasteries. >> >> I am no historian, Bill, and maybe I'm missing something? >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 14/04/2018 2:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>> Thanks Ed, >>> >>> A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>> Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? >>> >>> I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am >>> interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and >>> the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington >>> that went into that . >>> >>> Cheers, Bill >>> >>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: >>> >>>> Bill >>>> >>>> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an >>>> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice >>>> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I >>>> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks >>>> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the >>>> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably >>>> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like >>>> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman >>>> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on >>>> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who >>>> have interesting takes on some of this. >>>> >>>> Ed Wall >>>> >>>> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of >>>> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is >>>>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers >>>>> understand. Michael >>>>> >>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Michael wrote: >>>>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>>> >>>>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >>>>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the >>>> poor. >>>>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >>>>>> >>>>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >>>>>> not >>>>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>>>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as >>>> a >>>>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new >>>> things. >>>>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>>>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>>>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >>>>>> concerning >>>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the >>>> French >>>>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>>>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>>>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, >>>> xvii). >>>>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>>>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist >>>> as >>>>>>> relationship >>>>>>> >>>>>>> m >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>>>>>> Emergence. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >>>>>> manifestation >>>>>>>> of a >>>>>>>>> relationship. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >>>>>> basis >>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>>>>>> example >>>>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> a >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>>>>>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >>>>>> effect, >>>>>>>> like >>>>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>>>>>> explain >>>>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >>>>>> *constructions* >>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >>>>>> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>>>>>> book >>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >>>>>> social, >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>>>>>> because >>>>>>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>>>>>> two >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>>>>>> was >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>>>>>> our >>>>>>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>>>>>> tools, >>>>>>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>>>>>> fishing >>>>>>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>>>>>> sound-words >>>>>>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >>>>>> from >>>>>>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>>>>>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >>>>>> we >>>>>>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>>>>>> soup >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >>>>>> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >>>>>> that >>>>>>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>>>>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>>>>>> detecting >>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>>>>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >>>>>> in >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >>>>>> Moreover >>>>>>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >>>>>> would >>>>>>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>>>>>> whereas >>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>>>>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>>>>>> teachers. >>>>>>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>>>>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >>>>>> possible >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>>>>>> there >>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>>>>>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>>>>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> From haydizulfei@rocketmail.com Sun Apr 15 03:42:34 2018 From: haydizulfei@rocketmail.com (Haydi Zulfei) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 10:42:34 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] ON HIS PAGE ANDREY MAIDANSKY ALLOWED FOR THIS : BOTH VIEW AND DOWNLOAD References: <731000191.452903.1523788954102.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <731000191.452903.1523788954102@mail.yahoo.com> Vygotsky's Notebooks. A selection.pdf | | | | | | | | | | | Vygotsky's Notebooks. A selection.pdf View and download from Yandex.Disk | | | Haydi From smago@uga.edu Sun Apr 15 08:41:52 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:41:52 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: Fyi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Another interesting paper by Rene and colleague on LSV's Jewish heritage, something I've been fascinated by for several years (my grandparents were Jews from Gomel, came to the US in 1913 and 1916 to escape pogroms; my dad had 2 brothers born there, he and a brother were born in New York). -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Zav & VdV (2018). Not by bread alone.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 284688 bytes Desc: Zav & VdV (2018). Not by bread alone.pdf Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180415/d45c98f0/attachment.pdf From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Apr 15 12:29:58 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 12:29:58 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: FW: Fyi In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for keeping us up to date, Peter The conclusion coincides with my own view, not only of LSV, but of many of his contemporaries "So many Jewish young men, who had just torn themselves away from the Bible and the Talmud, went to fight and die for the peasant people for whom, it would seem, they just knew that they labored and suffered. They deeply believed in the soul of these people just because they were prepared to believe in truth and good, in the ultimate triumph of justice. It was the interaction with the prophets, with the great commandments of the whole Jewish culture that prepared them for it. (cited in Budnitskiy, 1996: 28) Vygotsky was one of these Jewish young men who sought justice and the general good in every historical circumstance. As a man of his time, he acutely felt the atrocities committed by various regimes and having found the ?bright light of atheism?, he continued to search for the truth ? no longer in Judaism but in Marxist science, in which he invested hopes that did not come true in his youth. (Nor later, so far as I know) If you are reading this note, Bella, might you share your opinion? You cited several times in the text. mike On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > Another interesting paper by Rene and colleague on LSV's Jewish heritage, > something I've been fascinated by for several years (my grandparents were > Jews from Gomel, came to the US in 1913 and 1916 to escape pogroms; my dad > had 2 brothers born there, he and a brother were born in New York). > > From ewall@umich.edu Sun Apr 15 12:46:13 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 14:46:13 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: the ancients and the moderns In-Reply-To: References: <56be260b-39f6-842f-ca5d-a4a07758f28b@marxists.org> <98bf7d60-bcdd-663a-ee01-a4af3e295f24@marxists.org> <37a4cfd2-63ca-fabf-e46c-8ac07c2c958b@marxists.org> <0E84B1C6-EE12-4721-8C66-BD99A9FF1A6B@umich.edu> <452a6444-2149-c32e-44f1-3b584735c959@marxists.org> <5EA133D0-08A7-4F76-B2B4-67C59B6A3277@umich.edu> Message-ID: <95FA0EE5-8C40-45B8-BE7B-9FF3BC8FDD9E@umich.edu> Andy ?World view? belonged to Bil, not me. I think the history of mathematics fits rather well into what you found during your research (I agree with your reasoning about Copernicus and David?s view of the historical)); i.e. there was a lot of stirring and sharing. ?Actual? Greek mathematics was, in a sense, rather fragile and, in a sense, substantially misunderstood after the fact. I would say that well before anything resembling Christianity and certainly well before the ?Roman Church? there were barely remnants of the Greek mathematical intellectual tradition. There were some early neo-platonists who tried, but reasonably unsuccessfully. However, texts (for example, Euclid) were saved, principally by Islamic scholars and there was developed a certain tradition of a proto-alegbra - mainly Islamic, at first - which spread into Europe. Most European mathematics, at this time of what little there was, was highly procedural; however some people - thinking, by the way, that they were continuing the Greek mathematical tradition (erroneously) began to make certain ?symbolic? generalizations that led, over a substantial amount of time, into modern mathematics. There has been some recovery of what seems to have been the original Greek mathematical intellectual tradition. Anyway mathematicians - probably mistakenly - view Euclid?s geometry as the Greek contribution and, in a way, as the only important ancient historical mathematical tradition (mainly because of a unique Greek mathematical methodology that is called ?proof?). Interestedly, the beginnings of Davydov?s mathematics curriculum- i.e. the measurement business - is rather ?Greek? and Plato would have thought the way we think about ?fractions' profoundly dubious. I have always whether the reason children struggle with such is because the Modern take is rather , in a sense, counter-intuitive given their experiences. Anyway Klein says all this better than I. Ed "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr > On Apr 14, 2018, at 9:31 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > I am sure you are right, Ed, in that the history of > mathematics must be in considerable measure one made up of > scholars reading each other's work over vast expanses of > time and space, and it is all much more complicated than I > know. And Greek mathematics reached us not only via the > Islamic world, but by the collaboration of Christian and > Islamic scholars in Spain, I think. It was you invocation of > "world view" which triggered my response. > > In doing my research for "The Origins of Collective Decision > Making" I found that academic historians wrote histories > based on texts written by philosophers and it went: Ancient > Greece, briefly Pliny, Gaius etc, then Condorcet and the > philosophers of the French revolution, skipping blithely > over a millennium and a half in which the common people > developed and practised methods of collective decision > making, upon which the French Philosophers of the 18th > century could spin their elaborate and largely puerile and > impractical theories. So, I wondered how much Copernicus > owed to ancients Greeks who had already tried to measure the > diameter of the Earth, and how much he owed to Italian and > Dutch lens-makers and other artisans who developed very > different approaches to understanding how Nature worked. > Probably the "world view" that informed Galileo he owed to > medieval Europe rather than Greek, Roman or Islamic scholars. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 15/04/2018 5:53 AM, Edward Wall wrote: >> Andy >> >> While there is much in what you say, a good bit of Greek mathematics was mediated through the Arabs. There is plenty of historical evidence. As regards it being mainly scripture, Plato has Socrates do considerable mathematics. Jacob Klein makes the point fairly well that there isn?t continuity re mathematics (ancient to modern); however that has little to do (in a sense) with the Roman Church. It has more to do with European adaptions of number. Nevertheless, my experience thinking in and outside mathematics classrooms, indicates a naive Greek view of number is alive and well. >> >> Ed >> >> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >> >> >> >> >>> On Apr 14, 2018, at 12:34 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: >>> >>> Bill, I don't have any particular recommendation for your >>> reading, but I have noticed a strange thing about how we >>> view our intellectual history. >>> >>> There is no direct connection between modern (i.e., >>> post-Copernicus) European thinking and the ancient Greeks. >>> The only connections were mediated by the Romans, and after >>> the decline of the Roman Empire by the Roman Church, and the >>> Islamic world, and the heritage we received by this route >>> was entirely scriptural. The legacy received via the Roman >>> Church was of course a priestly one. >>> >>> So I question whether there is any continuity in "world >>> view" between the Greeks and the moderns, so the question of >>> a "change" is problematic. So far as I can see modern, >>> bourgeois consciousness arose out of the feudal societies >>> which restored themselves after the Romans left. It is true >>> that these societies were not particularly literate, so >>> written records are mostly owed to the monasteries. >>> >>> I am no historian, Bill, and maybe I'm missing something? >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 14/04/2018 2:07 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>>> Thanks Ed, >>>> >>>> A good Samaritan sent me a copy of "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>> Mathematics?. I've ordered a copy of "Ethnographies of Reason.? >>>> >>>> I looked up the other two. Once again, they are quite expensive. I am >>>> interested in that change of world view that occurred b/w the Greeks and >>>> the Moderns. I read a short book about Francis Bacon by Benjamin Farrington >>>> that went into that . >>>> >>>> Cheers, Bill >>>> >>>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:38 AM, Edward Wall wrote: >>>> >>>>> Bill >>>>> >>>>> The book "The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics? - an >>>>> ?interesting' take on Godel?s First Incompleteness Theorem - is just a nice >>>>> typeset copy of his dissertation (he may have a few extra things; I think I >>>>> looked at it once and didn?t see much different but perhaps Michael thinks >>>>> otherwise) which you can get from ProQuest for about $35 or whatever the >>>>> going price is now. There are also a few articles which are reasonably >>>>> available and, as MIchael, mentioned "Ethnographies of Reason.? If you like >>>>> this sort of things, I would recommend The Ethics of Geometry by Lachterman >>>>> and perhaps The Origin of the Logic of Symbolic Mathematics which takes on >>>>> Husserl and Klein. There is, of course, a long list of other people who >>>>> have interesting takes on some of this. >>>>> >>>>> Ed Wall >>>>> >>>>> "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite of >>>>> a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Niels Bohr >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Apr 11, 2018, at 9:40 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> Bill, the book that I really found good (I have read all of his) is >>>>>> "Ethnographies of Reason". Lots of good materials for helping readers >>>>>> understand. Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:08 PM, Bill Kerr wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Michael wrote: >>>>>>> the critique that E. Livingston articulates concerning >>>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I looked up Eric Livingston, The Ethnomethodological Foundations of >>>>>>> Mathematics, referenced on p. 56 of your book. The price was $202, ouch! >>>>>>> Publishers put marxist ideas from academics out of the reach of the >>>>> poor. >>>>>>> Can this problem be solved or mitigated under capitalism? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2018 at 12:36 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth < >>>>>>> wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Andy, to construct is a transitive verb, we construct something. It is >>>>>>> not >>>>>>>> well suited to describe the emergence (morphogenesis) of something new. >>>>>>>> This is why Richard Rorty (1989) rejects it, using the craftsperson as >>>>> a >>>>>>>> counter example to the poet in the larger sense, the maker of new >>>>> things. >>>>>>>> He writes that poets know what they have done only afterward, when, >>>>>>>> together with the new thing they have found themselves speaking a new >>>>>>>> language that also provides a reason for this language. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I also direct you to the critique that E. Livingston articulates >>>>>>> concerning >>>>>>>> social constructionism, which takes the social in a WEAK sense; and the >>>>>>>> social in the strong sense is not a construction. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Also interesting in this is the question of origins, and there the >>>>> French >>>>>>>> philosophers (Derrida and others) have had a lot of discussion. Mead's >>>>>>>> fundamental point is that "before the emergent has occurred, and at the >>>>>>>> moment of its occurrence, it does not follow from the past" (1932, >>>>> xvii). >>>>>>>> And concerning relations, Marx/Engels write (German Ideology) that the >>>>>>>> animal does not relate at all, for it, the relationship does not exist >>>>> as >>>>>>>> relationship >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Rorty, R 1989, *Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity*, CUP >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:29 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>> Well, I can see that as an argument, Michael. My response: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The thing is, to interpret "construction" in an intellectual >>>>>>>>> way, leads to the conclusion that to give construction a >>>>>>>>> fundamental place in human evolution is "intellectualism," >>>>>>>>> and actually, interpreted that way, would be utterly absurd. >>>>>>>>> But the fact is that all human actions are teleological, >>>>>>>>> that is, oriented to a goal. Of course!! no hominid ever >>>>>>>>> said to herself: "I think I will now take another step to >>>>>>>>> evolving homo sapiens." AN Leontyev does exactly the same >>>>>>>>> move in his criticism of Vygotsky. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Actually, I don't know just how the formation of social >>>>>>>>> customs, speech and tool-making interacted in the earliest >>>>>>>>> stages of phylogenesis, ... and nor do you. We do know that >>>>>>>>> all three are intimately interconnected from the earliest >>>>>>>>> times we have any real knowledge of, though. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> As to "emergence," in my opinion "emergence" is the modern >>>>>>>>> word for God. I don't know how this happens, so it must be >>>>>>>>> Emergence. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>> Andy, there is nothing of construction. Construction may be an effect >>>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> mind, but mind did not emerge as a construction. It is a >>>>>>> manifestation >>>>>>>>> of a >>>>>>>>>> relationship. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Emergence means that what comes after cannot be predicted on the >>>>>>> basis >>>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>> what comes before. The construction metaphor implies that (e.g., the >>>>>>>>>> craftsman in the Marx/Engels case who is superior to the bee, an >>>>>>>> example >>>>>>>>>> that Vygotsky takes up). >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Construction smacks of intellectualism, precisely the intellectualism >>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky made some moves to overcome at the end of his life >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 7:09 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> All of those quotes make my point, Michael, in ever so >>>>>>>>>>> slightly different words. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> a >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>> On 12/04/2018 12:02 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> I do not think mind is a construction, >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky (1989) writes: "Any higher psychological function ... was >>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>> social relation between two people" (p.56) >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> And Mikhailov (2001) suggests: "the very existence of the >>>>>>>>>>>> mind is possible only at the borderline where there is a continual >>>>>>>>>>>> coming and going of one into the other, at their dynamic interface, >>>>>>>>>>>> as it were?an interface that is defined ... by the single process >>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>> their >>>>>>>>>>>> [self and other] mutual generation and mutual determination" >>>>>>>> (pp.20-21) >>>>>>>>>>>> Bateson (1979): Mind is an effect of relations, an aggregate >>>>>>> effect, >>>>>>>>> like >>>>>>>>>>>> stereo (spatial) vision >>>>>>>>>>>> is the emergent effect of two eyes with planar images. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Mead (1932): "the appearance of mind is only the culmination of >>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>> sociality which is found throughout the universe" (p.86). >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Nobody says anything about construction. The to eyes don't >>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>> stereovision and space. It is an emergent phenomenon, >>>>>>>>>>>> an ensemble effect deriving from relations. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> m >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:47 AM, Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> I always thought that the mind was a construction of human >>>>>>>>>>>>> culture. But of course, that was not what Spinoza thought. >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 11:44 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, I am not saying that there were human beings. Anthropogenesis >>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>> generalized (societal) action *come* together. But we have to >>>>>>>> explain >>>>>>>>>>>>>> culture and cognition as emergent phenomena not as >>>>>>> *constructions* >>>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>> mind. m >>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden < >>>>>>> andyb@marxists.org> >>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So, Michael, you are saying that there were human beings >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> before there was culture. And I gather you do not count >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> tools as units of culture. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Do we have to await a Psychologist to invent the word >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" before we can poke a stick into an ant-hill? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Creationism makes more sense, Michael, at least it offers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> /some/ explanation for the existence of human life. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 11/04/2018 9:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi Bill, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is not so much "socially constructed." My key point in the >>>>>>>> book >>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> it is social BEFORE there can be any construction. It is >>>>>>> social, >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> is where I refer to a Vygotsky that has not been taken up, >>>>>>>> because >>>>>>>>>>>>> "every >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> higher psychological function ... was a social relation between >>>>>>>> two >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> people." That is, in this specific case, mathematics is social, >>>>>>>> was >>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> relation between two people before you see it in individuals... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I think the construction metaphor breaks down when you look at >>>>>>>> our >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> becoming human. So before there was culture, before we used >>>>>>>> tools, >>>>>>>>>>>>> where >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> were those tools for constructing anything of the likes that >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructivists say that we use to construct? How can a hominid >>>>>>>>>>>>> construct >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "meaning" of the branch as tool to start digging for roots or >>>>>>>>> fishing >>>>>>>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> termites? And how do they construct meaning of the first >>>>>>>>> sound-words >>>>>>>>>>>>> when >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they do not have a system that would serve as material and tool >>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> building anything like "meaning?" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So yes, a learning theory has to be able to explain learning >>>>>>> from >>>>>>>>>>>>> before >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> culture (phylogenesis), before language and meaning >>>>>>>> (ontogenesis). >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And about eclecticism---I think we would be a step further if >>>>>>> we >>>>>>>>>>>>> listened >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to and pondered A.N. Leont'ev's complaint about the "eclectic >>>>>>>> soup >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> [eklekticheskoj pokhlebke] ... each to his own recipe" that >>>>>>>>>>>>> psychologists >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are trying to cook (in his foreword to *Activity. >>>>>>> Consciousness. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Personality*). >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Cheers, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 7:15 PM, Bill Kerr >>>>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One interpretation of Vygotsky (Wolff-Michael Roth) argues >>>>>>> that >>>>>>>>> all >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, >>>>>>>>> paying >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of >>>>>>>>> detecting >>>>>>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> evaluating what is going on . Human activity can?t be reduced >>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> individual >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> actions. Anything individual originates in the social, be it >>>>>>>>> words, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> mathematics or by implication computer science (mentioned not >>>>>>> in >>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> original but because it is a current interest of mine). >>>>>>> Moreover >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> internal >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> representations or schemas seem to be denied because that >>>>>>> would >>>>>>>>> be a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity >>>>>>>> whereas >>>>>>>>>>> the >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> real >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> deal is an integrated thinking body. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This world view is critical of other learning theories be they >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> behaviourist, cognitivist, enactivist or constructivist. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The question that I want to explore here is the pragmatic one >>>>>>> of >>>>>>>>>>>>> whether >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and how learning theory (an abstraction) makes a difference in >>>>>>>>>>>>> practice, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> for busy, hard working (usually overworked) teachers. An >>>>>>>>> alternative >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> epistemology/ies which might appeal more in practice to real >>>>>>>>>>> teachers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> under >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pressure is an eclectic one centred around the issue of ?what >>>>>>>>>>> works?. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I believe I am better read on learning theory than most >>>>>>>> teachers. >>>>>>>>>>> See >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/learning%20theories >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Up until now I've developed an eclectic / pragmatic approach >>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>> putting >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory into practice. Take something from Seymour >>>>>>>>> Papert's >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> constructionism, something from Dan Willingham's cognitivism, >>>>>>>>>>>>> something >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> from Dan Dennett's behaviourism, something from Andy Clarke?s >>>>>>>>>>>>> enactivism >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and roll them altogether in an eclectic mix. The authors in >>>>>>> this >>>>>>>>>>> list >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> could >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> be multiplied. My underlying belief was that it was not >>>>>>> possible >>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> develop >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> a unified learning theory, that human learning was too complex >>>>>>>> for >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that. As >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Marvin Minsky once said in 'Society of Mind', "the trick is >>>>>>>> there >>>>>>>>> is >>>>>>>>>>>>> no >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> trick", I think meaning no overarching way in which human's >>>>>>>> learn. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> One big surprise in reading Wolff-Michael Roth is his serious >>>>>>>>>>> attempt >>>>>>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> put an end to such eclectism and develop what appears to be a >>>>>>>>> unfied >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> learning theory. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Apr 14 21:57:56 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 04:57:56 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Spring 2018 issue of JoLLE now available! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Peter It looks chockablock full of interesting articles. Even one about using #twitter to promote literacy! Mike On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 2:16 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/current-issue/ > Dear colleagues, please help yourself to any and all articles and videos > in the just-released spring, 2018 issue of the Journal of Language and > Literacy Education. > From smago@uga.edu Mon Apr 16 02:42:53 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 09:42:53 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Michael Halliday, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney in 1976, has passed away at Uniting Wesley Heights Nursing Home in Manly ? aged 93. While Professor of Linguistics at Sydney, Michael built up the Department, developing an undergraduate pass and honours program and the first Master of Applied Linguistics program in the Southern Hemisphere; and he played a key role in attracting an energetic cohort of PhD students. He retired in 1987, becoming Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney. He had previously held chairs at the University of London, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the University of Essex. Born in Yorkshire in 1925, Michael's undergraduate and postgraduate studies, which he pursued in Beijing, Guangzhou, Cambridge and London, focused on Chinese. He later concentrated on English (cohesion, lexicogrammar and prosodic phonology in particular), and is internationally acclaimed as the founder of the theory of language known as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The fourth edition of his most cited publication, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (first published in 1985) was published in 2014. Unlike many of his peers he conceived of linguistics as an ideologically committed form of social action, and devoted his career to the development of an appliable linguistics that could be used to productively address secular concerns; his interest in education and the critical role played by language in teaching and learning is well-known. As Ron Carter comments on the collection of interviews with Halliday edited by J.R. Martin (Bloomsbury 2013): ?The phrases ?major figure?, ?significance? and ?international influence? are commonly overblown in the contemporary academic world; but these interviews with Michael Halliday require no exaggeration. They represent the richest of testimonies to his centrality, significance, impact and enduring influence as a linguist.? Those who had the good fortune to know Michael as a teacher, mentor, colleague, comrade and/or friend will remember him as a warm and humble yet inspirational figure who made time for those around him, regardless of their status. He suffered terribly from the loss of his beloved wife, colleague and companion Ruqaiya Hasan in 2015, but was comforted in his final years by frequent visits from family and colleagues from around the globe, and the loving care of his son Neil and his partner Shaye. The Department honoured Michael with the founding of the Halliday Medal upon his retirement, awarded annually to the leading students in its applied linguistics program. As recently as 2014, Halliday presented the award personally at the School of Literature, Art and Media?s prize-giving ceremony. His work continues to influence teaching and research in the Department and around the world ? an enduring touchstone for everyone interested in language and the ways in which people make meaning to live. The Department extends it sympathy to Michael's surviving family. His life has passed but the amazing treasure of his intellect will thrive in all those touched by his work for generations to come. A/Prof Monika Bednarek Chair of Linguistics John Woolley Building A20 The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Mon Apr 16 03:22:56 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:22:56 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1523874176243.56601@iped.uio.no> Thanks for sharing these sad news, Peter. Michael Halliday has been and continues to be a great influence in this forum?one of the most often referred figures along with Ruqaiya Hasan?as well as in any other fora interested in the intimate connection between language, mind, and culture. His systemic functional linguistics and the multiple links with Vygotsky's theory have been a source of creative production in Mind Culture and Activity since the journal's inception, influencing the works of such important authors as Gordon Wells, Jay Lemke or Anna Sfard, as well as that of more recent contributions by frequent members of this forum such as David Kellogg or James Ma. Given such a legacy, I take it that this is as good an occasion to regret a great loss as it is to celebrate a legacy that shows no signs of fading away and which surely will survive and continue growing for long time. Alfredo Jornet ________________________________ New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and intransitive dimensions" Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Peter Smagorinsky Sent: 16 April 2018 11:42 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP Dear colleagues, Michael Halliday, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney in 1976, has passed away at Uniting Wesley Heights Nursing Home in Manly ? aged 93. While Professor of Linguistics at Sydney, Michael built up the Department, developing an undergraduate pass and honours program and the first Master of Applied Linguistics program in the Southern Hemisphere; and he played a key role in attracting an energetic cohort of PhD students. He retired in 1987, becoming Emeritus Professor of the University of Sydney. He had previously held chairs at the University of London, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the University of Essex. Born in Yorkshire in 1925, Michael's undergraduate and postgraduate studies, which he pursued in Beijing, Guangzhou, Cambridge and London, focused on Chinese. He later concentrated on English (cohesion, lexicogrammar and prosodic phonology in particular), and is internationally acclaimed as the founder of the theory of language known as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The fourth edition of his most cited publication, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (first published in 1985) was published in 2014. Unlike many of his peers he conceived of linguistics as an ideologically committed form of social action, and devoted his career to the development of an appliable linguistics that could be used to productively address secular concerns; his interest in education and the critical role played by language in teaching and learning is well-known. As Ron Carter comments on the collection of interviews with Halliday edited by J.R. Martin (Bloomsbury 2013): ?The phrases ?major figure?, ?significance? and ?international influence? are commonly overblown in the contemporary academic world; but these interviews with Michael Halliday require no exaggeration. They represent the richest of testimonies to his centrality, significance, impact and enduring influence as a linguist.? Those who had the good fortune to know Michael as a teacher, mentor, colleague, comrade and/or friend will remember him as a warm and humble yet inspirational figure who made time for those around him, regardless of their status. He suffered terribly from the loss of his beloved wife, colleague and companion Ruqaiya Hasan in 2015, but was comforted in his final years by frequent visits from family and colleagues from around the globe, and the loving care of his son Neil and his partner Shaye. The Department honoured Michael with the founding of the Halliday Medal upon his retirement, awarded annually to the leading students in its applied linguistics program. As recently as 2014, Halliday presented the award personally at the School of Literature, Art and Media?s prize-giving ceremony. His work continues to influence teaching and research in the Department and around the world ? an enduring touchstone for everyone interested in language and the ways in which people make meaning to live. The Department extends it sympathy to Michael's surviving family. His life has passed but the amazing treasure of his intellect will thrive in all those touched by his work for generations to come. A/Prof Monika Bednarek Chair of Linguistics John Woolley Building A20 The University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 07:05:11 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 07:05:11 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Bill's query Message-ID: Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: ------------------- Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I think my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses Piaget, if I remember well) "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the person) "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that *misconceptions ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 times, and so on...) I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) ------------------ Michael From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 07:45:14 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:45:14 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some kind... Best, Huw On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > ------------------- > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I think > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses > Piaget, if I remember well) > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the > person) > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > knowing > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have pointed > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet do, > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > Meyer-Drawe, > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a Piaget, > from whom children are lesser (adults) > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > *misconceptions > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the literature > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, and > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb > *cannot* appears > over 60 times, and so on...) > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his lab > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > ------------------ > > Michael > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 07:49:57 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 07:49:57 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see the color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some > kind... > > Best, > Huw > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth > > wrote: > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > ------------------- > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > think > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also > discusses > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the > > person) > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > knowing > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have pointed > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet > do, > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > > Meyer-Drawe, > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a > Piaget, > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > *misconceptions > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the literature > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > wide > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > incorrect, > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, and > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears > at > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb > > *cannot* appears > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his > lab > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > ------------------ > > > > Michael > > > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 07:59:58 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:59:58 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the listserve. The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is one preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be better to prefix by initials. Best, Huw On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see the > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some > > kind... > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > wrote: > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > > think > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > the > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also > > discusses > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > *incorrectly > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the > > > person) > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > knowing > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have > pointed > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet > > do, > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: > Wilhelm > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a > > Piaget, > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > *misconceptions > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the > literature > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > wide > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > incorrect, > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > pass > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, > and > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears > > at > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb > > > *cannot* appears > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his > > lab > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > ------------------ > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 08:06:50 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 08:06:50 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here again with WMR in front of what I am saying. Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: ------------------- Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I think my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding world" (51) WMR: (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses Piaget, if I remember well) "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) WMR: (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the person) "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's knowing *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) WMR: (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that *misconceptions ... have to be eradicated* (53) WMR: (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the child's different view of the world. WMR: (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 times, and so on...) I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, constructionism, contains many useful insights. WMR: (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) ------------------ Michael On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:59 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the listserve. > The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is one > preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be better to > prefix by initials. > > Best, > Huw > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth > > wrote: > > > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see the > > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd > > wrote: > > > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, > > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some > > > kind... > > > > > > Best, > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in > my > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > > > think > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > > the > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > surrounding > > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also > > > discusses > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > *incorrectly > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in > > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for > the > > > > person) > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > > knowing > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have > > pointed > > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot > yet > > > do, > > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for > > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated > > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: > > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: > > Wilhelm > > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a > > > Piaget, > > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > > *misconceptions > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the > > literature > > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > > wide > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > incorrect, > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > > pass > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, > > and > > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure > appears > > > at > > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb > > > > *cannot* appears > > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from > his > > > lab > > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I > referenced > > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > From andyb@marxists.org Mon Apr 16 08:18:49 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 01:18:49 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4c821394-4e44-6485-4361-46f8f5feb8ae@marxists.org> You can't use colour on the xmca server. You can _underline_ or *bold* or /italicise/ but even these are not reliable. best to write in full prose, like: "You asked me whether I thought that XXX but I think that YYY" Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/04/2018 12:49 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see the > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > >> It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, >> Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some >> kind... >> >> Best, >> Huw >> >> >> On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth > wrote: >> >>> Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my >>> trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: >>> >>> >>> ------------------- >>> Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I >> think >>> my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: >>> >>> Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the >>> bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) >>> "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding >>> world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also >> discusses >>> Piaget, if I remember well) >>> "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly >>> 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in >>> constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the >>> person) >>> "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's >>> knowing >>> *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have pointed >>> in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet >> do, >>> he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for >>> characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: >>> Meyer-Drawe, >>> K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated >>> thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft: >>> Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm >>> Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a >> Piaget, >>> from whom children are lesser (adults) >>> "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that >>> *misconceptions >>> ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the literature >>> on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") >>> >>> Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and >> wide >>> glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as >> incorrect, >>> deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass >>> through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the >>> child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, and >>> in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears >> at >>> least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb >>> *cannot* appears >>> over 60 times, and so on...) >>> >>> I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, >>> constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my >>> constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his >> lab >>> [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced >>> their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) >>> ------------------ >>> >>> Michael >>> From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 09:04:22 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 17:04:22 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 April 2018 at 16:06, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Here again with WMR in front of what I am saying. > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > ------------------- > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I think > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > world" (51) > WMR: (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses > Piaget, if I remember well) > Generally, the account is "organisationally closed and informationally open" which pertains to a process which produces itself. It is necessary to recognise that "information" means to in-form, which means to change the structure of. That is, the organ-as-process changes its own organisation. Note that this reference to *self*-reproduction need not pertain to the "self" of the individual. It pertains to the organ that is self-reproducing. The organ can be many things, including a joint perspective! > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > WMR: (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for only > something in your mind exists for the person) > > I think the attempt to treat things "outside" the observer as objective is an historical trend across numerous (all?) disciplines. In the cybernetics of the 60s it was recognised that the observer was part of the observed. This is expressed in terms of eigneforms and other modes of expression. For example, this is a extract from a paper by Gordon Pask (1984), who references Piaget and others: "An observer or experimenter is on a par with the participants who are not, as suggested by the denial of assumption a of Section 1.2, regarded as it-referenced or, strictly, objective entities. It follows, inci- dentally, that an observer cannot be com- pletely impartial and that information about a conversation, since it is not strictly objec- tive information, is not generally maximized, as it may be in a classical exper- iment, by minimizing an experimenter's in- terference, by controlling and replicating the conditions of the experiment." > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > knowing > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > WMR: (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a > child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) > reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the > 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige > Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: > Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a > Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) > Classifying according to what cannot (yet) be undertaken seems to me to be reasonable when one is interested in achieving specialised skills pertaining to competencies, such as learning how to solve a problem (and not merely solving it on the basis of being shown in detail). This is the same condition as explored through the vehicle of ability to imitate (Vygotsky). Note that this does not enforce any conditions about the individuality of the individual. > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > *misconceptions > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > WMR: (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, with the > very verb "eradicate") > So there is some bias concerning which skills are valued... The teacher notes his students have certain habits that need to be "eradicated" in order for them to provide "correct" answers... > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > child's different view of the world. > WMR: (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical > Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, though > one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 times, > and so on...) > Generally, I have found Piaget's translations problematic. The use of accommodation and assimilation in different contexts combined with circumambulation can make for a protracted exercise in which I think one would inevitably end up going back to the French (and the historical settings) in order to gain further clarity. Here the point seems to be about the use of certain expressions indicating an archaic mentality(?) I would say the point may be much simpler. Failure and success can pertain to the a process, just as saying "in" or "out" can pertain to circumstances pertaining to a container metaphor. > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > constructionism, contains many useful insights. > WMR: (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the books > coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. > And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that > work.) > So there is some premise at play concerning individuality (or not) and constructivism? Hope this helps. Best, Huw > ------------------ > > Michael > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:59 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the listserve. > > The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is one > > preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be better to > > prefix by initials. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > wrote: > > > > > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see the > > > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd > > > wrote: > > > > > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, > > > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of some > > > > kind... > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in > > my > > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it > I > > > > think > > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've > *bolded* > > > the > > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > > surrounding > > > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also > > > > discusses > > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > > *incorrectly > > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find > in > > > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for > > the > > > > > person) > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize > children's > > > > > knowing > > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have > > > pointed > > > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot > > yet > > > > do, > > > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference > for > > > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > > > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated > > > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige > Vernunft: > > > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: > > > Wilhelm > > > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a > > > > Piaget, > > > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > > > *misconceptions > > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the > > > literature > > > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall > and > > > > wide > > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > > incorrect, > > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have > to > > > pass > > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood > the > > > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick > check, > > > and > > > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure > > appears > > > > at > > > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb > > > > > *cannot* appears > > > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from > > his > > > > lab > > > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I > > referenced > > > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From jamesma320@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 09:24:32 2018 From: jamesma320@gmail.com (James Ma) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 17:24:32 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP In-Reply-To: <1523874176243.56601@iped.uio.no> References: <1523874176243.56601@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Sad news indeed, but his work lives on. James *___________________________________* *James Ma* *https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa * On 16 April 2018 at 11:22, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Thanks for sharing these sad news, Peter. Michael Halliday has been and > continues to be a great influence in this forum?one of the most often > referred figures along with Ruqaiya Hasan?as well as in any other fora > interested in the intimate connection between language, mind, and culture. > His systemic functional linguistics and the multiple links with Vygotsky's > theory have been a source of creative production in Mind Culture and > Activity since the journal's inception, influencing the works of such > important authors as Gordon Wells, Jay Lemke or Anna Sfard, as well as that > of more recent contributions by frequent members of this forum such as > David Kellogg or James Ma. Given such a legacy, I take it that this is as > good an occasion to regret a great loss as it is to celebrate a legacy that > shows no signs of fading away and which surely will survive and continue > growing for long time. > > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Peter Smagorinsky > Sent: 16 April 2018 11:42 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] FW: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP > > Dear colleagues, > > > > Michael Halliday, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the > University of Sydney in 1976, has passed away at Uniting Wesley Heights > Nursing Home in Manly ? aged 93. While Professor of Linguistics at Sydney, > Michael built up the Department, developing an undergraduate pass and > honours program and the first Master of Applied Linguistics program in the > Southern Hemisphere; and he played a key role in attracting an energetic > cohort of PhD students. He retired in 1987, becoming Emeritus Professor of > the University of Sydney. He had previously held chairs at the University > of London, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the University > of Essex. > > > > Born in Yorkshire in 1925, Michael's undergraduate and postgraduate > studies, which he pursued in Beijing, Guangzhou, Cambridge and London, > focused on Chinese. He later concentrated on English (cohesion, > lexicogrammar and prosodic phonology in particular), and is internationally > acclaimed as the founder of the theory of language known as Systemic > Functional Linguistics (SFL). The fourth edition of his most cited > publication, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (first published in > 1985) was published in 2014. Unlike many of his peers he conceived of > linguistics as an ideologically committed form of social action, and > devoted his career to the development of an appliable linguistics that > could be used to productively address secular concerns; his interest in > education and the critical role played by language in teaching and learning > is well-known. As Ron Carter comments on the collection of interviews with > Halliday edited by J.R. Martin (Bloomsbury 2013): > > > > ?The phrases ?major figure?, ?significance? and ?international influence? > are commonly overblown in the contemporary academic world; but these > interviews with Michael Halliday require no exaggeration. They represent > the richest of testimonies to his centrality, significance, impact and > enduring influence as a linguist.? > > > > Those who had the good fortune to know Michael as a teacher, mentor, > colleague, comrade and/or friend will remember him as a warm and humble yet > inspirational figure who made time for those around him, regardless of > their status. He suffered terribly from the loss of his beloved wife, > colleague and companion Ruqaiya Hasan in 2015, but was comforted in his > final years by frequent visits from family and colleagues from around the > globe, and the loving care of his son Neil and his partner Shaye. > > > > The Department honoured Michael with the founding of the Halliday Medal > upon his retirement, awarded annually to the leading students in its > applied linguistics program. As recently as 2014, Halliday presented the > award personally at the School of Literature, Art and Media?s prize-giving > ceremony. His work continues to influence teaching and research in the > Department and around the world ? an enduring touchstone for everyone > interested in language and the ways in which people make meaning to live. > > > > The Department extends it sympathy to Michael's surviving family. His life > has passed but the amazing treasure of his intellect will thrive in all > those touched by his work for generations to come. > > > > > > A/Prof Monika Bednarek > > Chair of Linguistics > > John Woolley Building A20 > > The University of Sydney > > NSW 2006 > > Australia > > > Virus-free. www.avast.com <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> From gordonucsc@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 09:55:24 2018 From: gordonucsc@gmail.com (Gordon Wells) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 12:55:24 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: FW: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am very sorry to hear of Michael's death. He played a very important role as I embarked on the Bristol Study of Language Development back in the middle 60s. I first met Michael when I travelled to London to hear him talk. I knew no-one in the gathering but, by chance, I got chatting over a cup of coffee with a very friendly person who, to my subsequent surprise, was the guest speaker. Over the following years, while Michael was still in London I would make visits to learn from him about what and how to code the recordings we made of the young children using a wireless microphone that they wore all day. I owe a great deal to his advice. Many years later I met him again in Hong Kong where we decided to go for a long walk over the mountain. After the conference, we found ourselves staying in the same beach hotel and we had more talk. I also visited Michael and Ruqaiya in Australia at about the time he was writing his book about Nigel's (Neil's) language development. I think it would be fair to say that his enormous body of work in developing the theory of systemic functional linguistics is the single most important C20th century contribution to our understanding of language systems. He will be sorely missed by many friends and colleagues, but his work will live on. Gordon Gordon Wells On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 5:42 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > Dear colleagues, > > > > Michael Halliday, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the > University of Sydney in 1976, has passed away at Uniting Wesley Heights > Nursing Home in Manly ? aged 93. While Professor of Linguistics at Sydney, > Michael built up the Department, developing an undergraduate pass and > honours program and the first Master of Applied Linguistics program in the > Southern Hemisphere; and he played a key role in attracting an energetic > cohort of PhD students. He retired in 1987, becoming Emeritus Professor of > the University of Sydney. He had previously held chairs at the University > of London, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the University > of Essex. > > > > Born in Yorkshire in 1925, Michael's undergraduate and postgraduate > studies, which he pursued in Beijing, Guangzhou, Cambridge and London, > focused on Chinese. He later concentrated on English (cohesion, > lexicogrammar and prosodic phonology in particular), and is internationally > acclaimed as the founder of the theory of language known as Systemic > Functional Linguistics (SFL). The fourth edition of his most cited > publication, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (first published in > 1985) was published in 2014. Unlike many of his peers he conceived of > linguistics as an ideologically committed form of social action, and > devoted his career to the development of an appliable linguistics that > could be used to productively address secular concerns; his interest in > education and the critical role played by language in teaching and learning > is well-known. As Ron Carter comments on the collection of interviews with > Halliday edited by J.R. Martin (Bloomsbury 2013): > > > > ?The phrases ?major figure?, ?significance? and ?international influence? > are commonly overblown in the contemporary academic world; but these > interviews with Michael Halliday require no exaggeration. They represent > the richest of testimonies to his centrality, significance, impact and > enduring influence as a linguist.? > > > > Those who had the good fortune to know Michael as a teacher, mentor, > colleague, comrade and/or friend will remember him as a warm and humble yet > inspirational figure who made time for those around him, regardless of > their status. He suffered terribly from the loss of his beloved wife, > colleague and companion Ruqaiya Hasan in 2015, but was comforted in his > final years by frequent visits from family and colleagues from around the > globe, and the loving care of his son Neil and his partner Shaye. > > > > The Department honoured Michael with the founding of the Halliday Medal > upon his retirement, awarded annually to the leading students in its > applied linguistics program. As recently as 2014, Halliday presented the > award personally at the School of Literature, Art and Media?s prize-giving > ceremony. His work continues to influence teaching and research in the > Department and around the world ? an enduring touchstone for everyone > interested in language and the ways in which people make meaning to live. > > > > The Department extends it sympathy to Michael's surviving family. His life > has passed but the amazing treasure of his intellect will thrive in all > those touched by his work for generations to come. > > > > > > A/Prof Monika Bednarek > > Chair of Linguistics > > John Woolley Building A20 > > The University of Sydney > > NSW 2006 > > Australia > > > > From wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 09:59:31 2018 From: wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com (Wolff-Michael Roth) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 09:59:31 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Huw, I checked on some of the French texts I have, and he does write about the child's current state in negative terms, as where the child is not yet. >From "La psychologie de l'enfant": 1. o? NE s'observe PAS encore une intelligence proprement dite (p.12) 2. au sein duquel il N'existe PAS ENCORE, dn point de vue du sujet, de diff?renciation (p.11) 3. mais NE parvient simplement PAS ? r?soudre le probl?me (p.15) And so on... Michael On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > On 16 April 2018 at 16:06, Wolff-Michael Roth > > wrote: > > > Here again with WMR in front of what I am saying. > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > ------------------- > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > think > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > world" (51) > > WMR: (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > Generally, the account is "organisationally closed and informationally > open" which pertains to a process which produces itself. It is necessary to > recognise that "information" means to in-form, which means to change the > structure of. That is, the organ-as-process changes its own organisation. > Note that this reference to *self*-reproduction need not pertain to the > "self" of the individual. It pertains to the organ that is > self-reproducing. The organ can be many things, including a joint > perspective! > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > WMR: (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for > only > > something in your mind exists for the person) > > > > > I think the attempt to treat things "outside" the observer as objective is > an historical trend across numerous (all?) disciplines. In the cybernetics > of the 60s it was recognised that the observer was part of the observed. > This is expressed in terms of eigneforms and other modes of expression. > > For example, this is a extract from a paper by Gordon Pask (1984), who > references Piaget and others: "An observer or experimenter is on a par with > the participants who are not, as suggested by the denial of assumption a of > Section 1.2, regarded as it-referenced or, strictly, objective entities. It > follows, inci- dentally, that an observer cannot be com- pletely impartial > and that information about a conversation, since it is not strictly objec- > tive information, is not generally maximized, as it may be in a classical > exper- iment, by minimizing an experimenter's in- terference, by > controlling and replicating the conditions of the experiment." > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > knowing > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > WMR: (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes what > a > > child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally > implicit) > > reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the > > 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > > undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), > Leibhaftige > > Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, > Germany: > > Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of > a > > Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > Classifying according to what cannot (yet) be undertaken seems to me to be > reasonable when one is interested in achieving specialised skills > pertaining to competencies, such as learning how to solve a problem (and > not merely solving it on the basis of being shown in detail). This is the > same condition as explored through the vehicle of ability to imitate > (Vygotsky). Note that this does not enforce any conditions about the > individuality of the individual. > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > *misconceptions > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > WMR: (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, with > the > > very verb "eradicate") > > > > So there is some bias concerning which skills are valued... The teacher > notes his students have certain habits that need to be "eradicated" in > order for them to provide "correct" answers... > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > wide > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > incorrect, > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > child's different view of the world. > > WMR: (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical > > Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, though > > one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 > times, > > and so on...) > > > > Generally, I have found Piaget's translations problematic. The use of > accommodation and assimilation in different contexts combined with > circumambulation can make for a protracted exercise in which I think one > would inevitably end up going back to the French (and the historical > settings) in order to gain further clarity. > > Here the point seems to be about the use of certain expressions indicating > an archaic mentality(?) I would say the point may be much simpler. Failure > and success can pertain to the a process, just as saying "in" or "out" can > pertain to circumstances pertaining to a container metaphor. > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. > > WMR: (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the > books > > coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. > > And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that > > work.) > > > > So there is some premise at play concerning individuality (or not) and > constructivism? > > Hope this helps. > > Best, > Huw > > > > ------------------ > > > > Michael > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:59 AM, Huw Lloyd > > wrote: > > > > > No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the > listserve. > > > The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is one > > > preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be better to > > > prefix by initials. > > > > > > Best, > > > Huw > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see > the > > > > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this email, > > > > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of > some > > > > > kind... > > > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find > in > > > my > > > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from > it > > I > > > > > think > > > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've > > *bolded* > > > > the > > > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > > > surrounding > > > > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also > > > > > discusses > > > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > > > *incorrectly > > > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically > find > > in > > > > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists > for > > > the > > > > > > person) > > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize > > children's > > > > > > knowing > > > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have > > > > pointed > > > > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child > cannot > > > yet > > > > > do, > > > > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference > > for > > > > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the 1980s: > > > > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > undomesticated > > > > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige > > Vernunft: > > > > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, Germany: > > > > Wilhelm > > > > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of > a > > > > > Piaget, > > > > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > > > > *misconceptions > > > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the > > > > literature > > > > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall > > and > > > > > wide > > > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > > > incorrect, > > > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have > > to > > > > pass > > > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood > > the > > > > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick > > check, > > > > and > > > > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure > > > appears > > > > > at > > > > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the > verb > > > > > > *cannot* appears > > > > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > > > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming > from > > > his > > > > > lab > > > > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I > > > referenced > > > > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 11:49:54 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 19:49:54 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ok. It's still not clear to me why this is significant for yourself or Bill. But this is your conversation... Huw On 16 April 2018 at 17:59, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote: > Huw, > I checked on some of the French texts I have, and he does write about the > child's current state in negative terms, as where the child is not yet. > >From "La psychologie de l'enfant": > > 1. o? NE s'observe PAS encore une intelligence proprement dite (p.12) > 2. au sein duquel il N'existe PAS ENCORE, dn point de vue du sujet, de > diff?renciation (p.11) > 3. mais NE parvient simplement PAS ? r?soudre le probl?me (p.15) > > And so on... > Michael > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > On 16 April 2018 at 16:06, Wolff-Michael Roth < > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > wrote: > > > > > Here again with WMR in front of what I am saying. > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > > think > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > the > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding > > > world" (51) > > > WMR: (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > > > Generally, the account is "organisationally closed and informationally > > open" which pertains to a process which produces itself. It is necessary > to > > recognise that "information" means to in-form, which means to change the > > structure of. That is, the organ-as-process changes its own organisation. > > Note that this reference to *self*-reproduction need not pertain to the > > "self" of the individual. It pertains to the organ that is > > self-reproducing. The organ can be many things, including a joint > > perspective! > > > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > *incorrectly > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > > WMR: (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for > > only > > > something in your mind exists for the person) > > > > > > > > I think the attempt to treat things "outside" the observer as objective > is > > an historical trend across numerous (all?) disciplines. In the > cybernetics > > of the 60s it was recognised that the observer was part of the observed. > > This is expressed in terms of eigneforms and other modes of expression. > > > > For example, this is a extract from a paper by Gordon Pask (1984), who > > references Piaget and others: "An observer or experimenter is on a par > with > > the participants who are not, as suggested by the denial of assumption a > of > > Section 1.2, regarded as it-referenced or, strictly, objective entities. > It > > follows, inci- dentally, that an observer cannot be com- pletely > impartial > > and that information about a conversation, since it is not strictly > objec- > > tive information, is not generally maximized, as it may be in a classical > > exper- iment, by minimizing an experimenter's in- terference, by > > controlling and replicating the conditions of the experiment." > > > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > knowing > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > > WMR: (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes > what > > a > > > child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally > > implicit) > > > reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in > the > > > 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > > > undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), > > Leibhaftige > > > Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, > > Germany: > > > Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique > of > > a > > > Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > > > Classifying according to what cannot (yet) be undertaken seems to me to > be > > reasonable when one is interested in achieving specialised skills > > pertaining to competencies, such as learning how to solve a problem (and > > not merely solving it on the basis of being shown in detail). This is the > > same condition as explored through the vehicle of ability to imitate > > (Vygotsky). Note that this does not enforce any conditions about the > > individuality of the individual. > > > > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > *misconceptions > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > > WMR: (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, with > > the > > > very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > So there is some bias concerning which skills are valued... The teacher > > notes his students have certain habits that need to be "eradicated" in > > order for them to provide "correct" answers... > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > wide > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > incorrect, > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > pass > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > child's different view of the world. > > > WMR: (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical > > > Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, > though > > > one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 > > times, > > > and so on...) > > > > > > > Generally, I have found Piaget's translations problematic. The use of > > accommodation and assimilation in different contexts combined with > > circumambulation can make for a protracted exercise in which I think one > > would inevitably end up going back to the French (and the historical > > settings) in order to gain further clarity. > > > > Here the point seems to be about the use of certain expressions > indicating > > an archaic mentality(?) I would say the point may be much simpler. > Failure > > and success can pertain to the a process, just as saying "in" or "out" > can > > pertain to circumstances pertaining to a container metaphor. > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. > > > WMR: (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the > > books > > > coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students > personally. > > > And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that > > > work.) > > > > > > > So there is some premise at play concerning individuality (or not) and > > constructivism? > > > > Hope this helps. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:59 AM, Huw Lloyd > > > wrote: > > > > > > > No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the > > listserve. > > > > The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is one > > > > preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be better > to > > > > prefix by initials. > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't see > > the > > > > > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd < > > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this > email, > > > > > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of > > some > > > > > > kind... > > > > > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not > find > > in > > > > my > > > > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from > > it > > > I > > > > > > think > > > > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again > here: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've > > > *bolded* > > > > > the > > > > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > > > > surrounding > > > > > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he > also > > > > > > discusses > > > > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > > > > *incorrectly > > > > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically > > find > > > in > > > > > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists > > for > > > > the > > > > > > > person) > > > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize > > > children's > > > > > > > knowing > > > > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I > have > > > > > pointed > > > > > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child > > cannot > > > > yet > > > > > > do, > > > > > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) > reference > > > for > > > > > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the > 1980s: > > > > > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > > > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > > undomesticated > > > > > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige > > > Vernunft: > > > > > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, > Germany: > > > > > Wilhelm > > > > > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique > of > > a > > > > > > Piaget, > > > > > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > > > > > *misconceptions > > > > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the > > > > > literature > > > > > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the > tall > > > and > > > > > > wide > > > > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > > > > incorrect, > > > > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children > have > > > to > > > > > pass > > > > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and > understood > > > the > > > > > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick > > > check, > > > > > and > > > > > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure > > > > appears > > > > > > at > > > > > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the > > verb > > > > > > > *cannot* appears > > > > > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their > version, > > > > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my > > > > > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming > > from > > > > his > > > > > > lab > > > > > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I > > > > referenced > > > > > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Mon Apr 16 17:52:46 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 09:52:46 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: FW: Fw: Michael Halliday, RIP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let me just underline this: "(H)is enormous body of work in developing the theory of systemic functional linguistics is the single most important C20th century contribution to our understanding of language systems." Those are very fine words, and I subscribe to every one of them. When I first traveled to Japan to meet Professor Halliday, I had read just enough to know he was a giant, a Vygotsky-sized titan, among minds. I think I was so anxious that he should not tower over me that I lectured him for a full five or six minutes about something in his talk I had completely misunderstood, barely letting him say a word. He took an immediate dislike to me. But he was never a man of strong dislikes, and when I met him again in China and in Australia, I was relieved that he did not recognize me at all (or at least he politely pretended not to). As soon as I got to know him as a teacher and not just a tower to be knocked down, I realized that part of that dislike had been that Halliday always lived proleptically, not in but for a world where absolutely everyone was a peer and a colleague and a comrade. Even though it is a semiotic world and not a material one, it remains a world that is yet to be made, even in academic life; yea, even in systemic-functional-linguistic academic life. Still, we can clearly make it out on the horizon in his last book "Aspects of Language and Learning" (Springer, 2016). I will gratefully and gladly walk in the long cool shadow of modesty that it casts for the rest of my days. . David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:55 AM, Gordon Wells wrote: > I am very sorry to hear of Michael's death. He played a very important role > as I embarked on the Bristol Study of Language Development back in the > middle 60s. I first met Michael when I travelled to London to hear him > talk. I knew no-one in the gathering but, by chance, I got chatting over a > cup of coffee with a very friendly person who, to my subsequent surprise, > was the guest speaker. Over the following years, while Michael was still in > London I would make visits to learn from him about what and how to code the > recordings we made of the young children using a wireless microphone that > they wore all day. I owe a great deal to his advice. > > Many years later I met him again in Hong Kong where we decided to go for a > long walk over the mountain. After the conference, we found ourselves > staying in the same beach hotel and we had more talk. I also visited > Michael and Ruqaiya in Australia at about the time he was writing his book > about Nigel's (Neil's) language development. > > I think it would be fair to say that his enormous body of work in > developing the theory of systemic functional linguistics is the single most > important C20th century contribution to our understanding of language > systems. He will be sorely missed by many friends and colleagues, but his > work will live on. > > Gordon > > > Gordon Wells > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 5:42 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > > Dear colleagues, > > > > > > > > Michael Halliday, who founded the Department of Linguistics at the > > University of Sydney in 1976, has passed away at Uniting Wesley Heights > > Nursing Home in Manly ? aged 93. While Professor of Linguistics at > Sydney, > > Michael built up the Department, developing an undergraduate pass and > > honours program and the first Master of Applied Linguistics program in > the > > Southern Hemisphere; and he played a key role in attracting an energetic > > cohort of PhD students. He retired in 1987, becoming Emeritus Professor > of > > the University of Sydney. He had previously held chairs at the University > > of London, the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, and the > University > > of Essex. > > > > > > > > Born in Yorkshire in 1925, Michael's undergraduate and postgraduate > > studies, which he pursued in Beijing, Guangzhou, Cambridge and London, > > focused on Chinese. He later concentrated on English (cohesion, > > lexicogrammar and prosodic phonology in particular), and is > internationally > > acclaimed as the founder of the theory of language known as Systemic > > Functional Linguistics (SFL). The fourth edition of his most cited > > publication, An Introduction to Functional Grammar (first published in > > 1985) was published in 2014. Unlike many of his peers he conceived of > > linguistics as an ideologically committed form of social action, and > > devoted his career to the development of an appliable linguistics that > > could be used to productively address secular concerns; his interest in > > education and the critical role played by language in teaching and > learning > > is well-known. As Ron Carter comments on the collection of interviews > with > > Halliday edited by J.R. Martin (Bloomsbury 2013): > > > > > > > > ?The phrases ?major figure?, ?significance? and ?international influence? > > are commonly overblown in the contemporary academic world; but these > > interviews with Michael Halliday require no exaggeration. They represent > > the richest of testimonies to his centrality, significance, impact and > > enduring influence as a linguist.? > > > > > > > > Those who had the good fortune to know Michael as a teacher, mentor, > > colleague, comrade and/or friend will remember him as a warm and humble > yet > > inspirational figure who made time for those around him, regardless of > > their status. He suffered terribly from the loss of his beloved wife, > > colleague and companion Ruqaiya Hasan in 2015, but was comforted in his > > final years by frequent visits from family and colleagues from around the > > globe, and the loving care of his son Neil and his partner Shaye. > > > > > > > > The Department honoured Michael with the founding of the Halliday Medal > > upon his retirement, awarded annually to the leading students in its > > applied linguistics program. As recently as 2014, Halliday presented the > > award personally at the School of Literature, Art and Media?s > prize-giving > > ceremony. His work continues to influence teaching and research in the > > Department and around the world ? an enduring touchstone for everyone > > interested in language and the ways in which people make meaning to live. > > > > > > > > The Department extends it sympathy to Michael's surviving family. His > life > > has passed but the amazing treasure of his intellect will thrive in all > > those touched by his work for generations to come. > > > > > > > > > > > > A/Prof Monika Bednarek > > > > Chair of Linguistics > > > > John Woolley Building A20 > > > > The University of Sydney > > > > NSW 2006 > > > > Australia > > > > > > > > > From billkerr@gmail.com Tue Apr 17 04:40:48 2018 From: billkerr@gmail.com (Bill Kerr) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 21:10:48 +0930 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bill's query In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the public reply Michael. I'm back at work this week at a new school so am flat out but will study in more detail when I have time. Bill On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 4:19 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Ok. It's still not clear to me why this is significant for yourself or > Bill. But this is your conversation... > > Huw > > On 16 April 2018 at 17:59, Wolff-Michael Roth > > wrote: > > > Huw, > > I checked on some of the French texts I have, and he does write about the > > child's current state in negative terms, as where the child is not yet. > > >From "La psychologie de l'enfant": > > > > 1. o? NE s'observe PAS encore une intelligence proprement dite (p.12) > > 2. au sein duquel il N'existe PAS ENCORE, dn point de vue du sujet, de > > diff?renciation (p.11) > > 3. mais NE parvient simplement PAS ? r?soudre le probl?me (p.15) > > > > And so on... > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Huw Lloyd > > wrote: > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 16:06, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Here again with WMR in front of what I am saying. > > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in > my > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I > > > think > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here: > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* > > the > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > surrounding > > > > world" (51) > > > > WMR: (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > > > > > > Generally, the account is "organisationally closed and informationally > > > open" which pertains to a process which produces itself. It is > necessary > > to > > > recognise that "information" means to in-form, which means to change > the > > > structure of. That is, the organ-as-process changes its own > organisation. > > > Note that this reference to *self*-reproduction need not pertain to the > > > "self" of the individual. It pertains to the organ that is > > > self-reproducing. The organ can be many things, including a joint > > > perspective! > > > > > > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > *incorrectly > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) > > > > WMR: (this is what you typically find in constructivist research, for > > > only > > > > something in your mind exists for the person) > > > > > > > > > > > I think the attempt to treat things "outside" the observer as objective > > is > > > an historical trend across numerous (all?) disciplines. In the > > cybernetics > > > of the 60s it was recognised that the observer was part of the > observed. > > > This is expressed in terms of eigneforms and other modes of expression. > > > > > > For example, this is a extract from a paper by Gordon Pask (1984), who > > > references Piaget and others: "An observer or experimenter is on a par > > with > > > the participants who are not, as suggested by the denial of assumption > a > > of > > > Section 1.2, regarded as it-referenced or, strictly, objective > entities. > > It > > > follows, inci- dentally, that an observer cannot be com- pletely > > impartial > > > and that information about a conversation, since it is not strictly > > objec- > > > tive information, is not generally maximized, as it may be in a > classical > > > exper- iment, by minimizing an experimenter's in- terference, by > > > controlling and replicating the conditions of the experiment." > > > > > > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's > > > > knowing > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) > > > > WMR: (I have pointed in the past to many places where Piaget writes > > what > > > a > > > > child cannot yet do, he always uses adult reasoning as (generally > > > implicit) > > > > reference for characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in > > the > > > > 1980s: Meyer-Drawe, K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming > of > > > > undomesticated thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), > > > Leibhaftige > > > > Vernunft: Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, > > > Germany: > > > > Wilhelm Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique > > of > > > a > > > > Piaget, from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > > > > > > Classifying according to what cannot (yet) be undertaken seems to me to > > be > > > reasonable when one is interested in achieving specialised skills > > > pertaining to competencies, such as learning how to solve a problem > (and > > > not merely solving it on the basis of being shown in detail). This is > the > > > same condition as explored through the vehicle of ability to imitate > > > (Vygotsky). Note that this does not enforce any conditions about the > > > individuality of the individual. > > > > > > > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that > > > > *misconceptions > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) > > > > WMR: (Yes, this you can find in the literature on misconceptions, > with > > > the > > > > very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > > > So there is some bias concerning which skills are valued... The teacher > > > notes his students have certain habits that need to be "eradicated" in > > > order for them to provide "correct" answers... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and > > > wide > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as > > > incorrect, > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to > > pass > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the > > > > child's different view of the world. > > > > WMR: (Well, I just did a quick check, and in *The Growth of Logical > > > > Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at least 50+ times, > > though > > > > one would have to check the sense; the verb *cannot* appears over 60 > > > times, > > > > and so on...) > > > > > > > > > > Generally, I have found Piaget's translations problematic. The use of > > > accommodation and assimilation in different contexts combined with > > > circumambulation can make for a protracted exercise in which I think > one > > > would inevitably end up going back to the French (and the historical > > > settings) in order to gain further clarity. > > > > > > Here the point seems to be about the use of certain expressions > > indicating > > > an archaic mentality(?) I would say the point may be much simpler. > > Failure > > > and success can pertain to the a process, just as saying "in" or "out" > > can > > > pertain to circumstances pertaining to a container metaphor. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version, > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. > > > > WMR: (I have, in my constructivist days, and I have read many of the > > > books > > > > coming from his lab [Papert], and I know many of his students > > personally. > > > > And I referenced their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in > that > > > > work.) > > > > > > > > > > So there is some premise at play concerning individuality (or not) and > > > constructivism? > > > > > > Hope this helps. > > > > > > Best, > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:59 AM, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > No, only certain kinds of markups will be sent on through the > > > listserve. > > > > > The lowest common denominator is ASCII. Indentation using ">" is > one > > > > > preferred style on technical forums. However, here, it may be > better > > to > > > > > prefix by initials. > > > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:49, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Huw, in the original, I am using the color red to add. I don't > see > > > the > > > > > > color in the quoted text that comes after your message. Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 7:45 AM, Huw Lloyd < > > > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > It's not immediately clear to me who is saying what, in this > > email, > > > > > > > Michael, and whether you both have agreed upon a distinction of > > > some > > > > > > > kind... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > > > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On 16 April 2018 at 15:05, Wolff-Michael Roth < > > > > > > wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not > > find > > > in > > > > > my > > > > > > > > trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------- > > > > > > > > Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly > from > > > it > > > > I > > > > > > > think > > > > > > > > my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again > > here: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've > > > > *bolded* > > > > > > the > > > > > > > > bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine) > > > > > > > > "the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the > > > > > surrounding > > > > > > > > world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he > > also > > > > > > > discusses > > > > > > > > Piaget, if I remember well) > > > > > > > > "In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to > > > > > > *incorrectly > > > > > > > > 'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically > > > find > > > > in > > > > > > > > constructivist research, for only something in your mind > exists > > > for > > > > > the > > > > > > > > person) > > > > > > > > "As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize > > > > children's > > > > > > > > knowing > > > > > > > > *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I > > have > > > > > > pointed > > > > > > > > in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child > > > cannot > > > > > yet > > > > > > > do, > > > > > > > > he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) > > reference > > > > for > > > > > > > > characterizing the child. There was a nice chapter in the > > 1980s: > > > > > > > > Meyer-Drawe, > > > > > > > > K. (1986). Z?hmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of > > > undomesticated > > > > > > > > thought?] In A. M?traux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige > > > > Vernunft: > > > > > > > > Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258?275). Munich, > > Germany: > > > > > > Wilhelm > > > > > > > > Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique > > of > > > a > > > > > > > Piaget, > > > > > > > > from whom children are lesser (adults) > > > > > > > > "In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read > that > > > > > > > > *misconceptions > > > > > > > > ... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in > the > > > > > > literature > > > > > > > > on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate") > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the > > tall > > > > and > > > > > > > wide > > > > > > > > glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described > as > > > > > > > incorrect, > > > > > > > > deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children > > have > > > > to > > > > > > pass > > > > > > > > through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and > > understood > > > > the > > > > > > > > child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a > quick > > > > check, > > > > > > and > > > > > > > > in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun > fail/failure > > > > > appears > > > > > > > at > > > > > > > > least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; > the > > > verb > > > > > > > > *cannot* appears > > > > > > > > over 60 times, and so on...) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their > > version, > > > > > > > > constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in > my > > > > > > > > constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming > > > from > > > > > his > > > > > > > lab > > > > > > > > [Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I > > > > > referenced > > > > > > > > their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.) > > > > > > > > ------------------ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From monica.lemos@gmail.com Tue Apr 17 06:06:22 2018 From: monica.lemos@gmail.com (Monica Lemos) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:06:22 -0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools In-Reply-To: <1521826827561.24749@iped.uio.no> References: <1520721034406.59651@iped.uio.no> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF245E@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <0bdd10ce-7411-8083-533f-44fcfb50e928@marxists.org> <1520858083490.87795@iped.uio.no> <2017557051.756650.1520967771201@mail.yahoo.com> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF29C7@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF2B93@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <1521156905718.23564@iped.uio.no> <001e01d3bd4e$f531b290$df9517b0$@att.net> <003601d3bd5e$1e105a40$5a310ec0$@att.net> <1521826827561.24749@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Dear all, Thank you all for the comments concerning our paper. I know the article *Facebook in Brazilian schools- Mobilizing to fight back* is not a hot topic anymore, but let's get back to business and I will do my best to contemplate all the co mments. As I opened my talk at ISCAR-Quebec, I used to jump outside school walls, either because there was no teachers or because I didn't like some classes and there was something more interesting to do outside. Differently from those students in the 4M, who jumped inside the school walls saying "school is ours" and getting organized despite various limitations to improve school, from cleaning to trying different ways of organizing classes. Is it a change in the wind? A breeze maybe. It was also very interesting to follow the discussions on the walkout about schools and guns, together with the persnal histories that came out with it. It reminded me of some colleagues, teachers at public schools, who have to ask students for their "little toys" (read it as guns) that were going to be returned by the end of the class. Could you share the results of the anti-gun students' movements? Concerning the readings on Focault, we didn't have legs to bring him to the article. We are aware, though, of how important it would be not only to enrich the discussion on social movements, but also to improve the notion of collaborative agency. Indeed, FB worked as a method of organizing students' own activties and also as a way to call people's attention on what they were doing or when they needed help. During the occupations they used to have two assemblies, in each school, in the beginning and in th eend of the day, so they would decide who was going to do what, and what would be the next steps concernig the object of the movement. These were posted on the FB pages as form of reporting decisions and activties. In such assemblies, students would decide who was going to be in charge of cleaning, cooking or being Public Relation (PR). This PR would be the adimin of the FB pages who was going to decide what would be on the pages. Those functions could change if they decided so during the meetings. They also made lives of manifestations on the streets, when students from different schools met, or called from help, for example in one event when the police blocked two sides of a street making it impossible for students to move. So, somehow it became a form of meaning making and as form of tool-and-result with all the weight words and other multimodal resoures can have, maybe generating rhe contradiction between agitation, propaganda and desire to change. Ephemeral however, because,as I mentioned before, they migrated to WhatsApp, and because the movements themselves faded way. For this reason Fernando and I discussed the notion of social movements as a form of wildfire activties, based on Engestr?m (2009), see the link below http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=208&doi=10.11648/j.hss.20170506.15 . Andy, I have to say I trembled in your comments about the relation between needs and object of the activties, but thank you David for solving the puzzle. The notion of collaborative agency is still in progress, Fernando has worked with it during his PhD and I have been working with it in other works. I drafted an in depth discussion on the topic so we can move on with the discussion. As one of the principles of CHAT, historicity plays a central role in understanding problems and potentials in activities (Engestr?m, 1987; 2001). By remembering what can be forgotten, appropriating from one?s own memory means to understand why history is constituted in one way and not in another, and why we become who we are, in which way it affects our cultural, historical and social life in the present and in the future (Souza, 2009:31). In historicity, traces of voices and lived experiences from the past constitute how subjects act in the present for projecting and transformation of activities in the future. Bearing historicity in mind, Bakhtin/Voloshinov (1986), states that every word expresses the one in relation to the other and that the utterances we produce, including our creative work, carries other?s words with different levels of otherness and different levels of ourselves. *The words of others manifest their own expression and evaluation, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate* (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1986 p.89). When different people get together, the traces of historicity and otherness support encounters that can be creative and promote collaborative agency. Mer?on (2009), based on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, defines encounters as a form of affect, the author asserts that in encounters we can affect and be affected, increase or hinder our power of acting, which also increases or hinders our power of thinking. When different parts come together in encounters, they their different historical background and different kinds of expertise can clash and melt together, which provides different kinds of meanings and contributions to an activity. According to Miettinen (2010; 2013) the reasons for encounters in activities mostly relate to the need to expand an expertise by finding a new product, raw material, or market, or solving a specific problem, therefore such encounters demand creativity so people?s power of acting and thinking increase. Miettinen (2014) states that creative encounters can be an attempt to transcend the limits of individualism, in addition, the promotion of creative encounters plays a central role in enabling collaborative agency, where participants engage toward a joint object of activity. In the same line, Lemos (2015; 2017) understood collaborative agency as a process through which participants become subjects of an activity by collaboratively constructing and envisioning new possibilities for their futures, consequently, transforming their own lives. Considering the movement school-community, Yamazumi (2009) poses that by creating hybrid and symbiotic activities in which various involved partners inside and outside the school collaborate and reciprocate with one another enables overcoming crisis. *The distinguishing feature of activity theory is a developmental theory concerned with qualitative transformations over time in human practice. Its central tenet is how human beings can become agents who can change themselves as they change their own institutions and practices in a way that mobilizes their collaborative agency (intellects and energies to act). Making changes in our own real life-worlds is at the heart of activity theory *(Yamazumi, 2009:36). The transformative stance of agency is only possible when individuals or group of individuals work in togetherness and not as conglomerate of people together (van Oers & H?nikainen, 2010) as in the traffic jam or as in the elevator. Collaborative agency generates transformative agency due to its possibility to break away from a given frame of action and to take the initiative to transform it which is enhanced by otherness constituted in historicity. Thus new tools, concepts and practices produced in creative encounters carry future-oriented visions loaded with initiative and commitment by partcipants (Virkkunen, 2006; Sannino, Engestr?m & Lemos, 2016). Yet, from a transformative perspective, agency is related to the collective activity of a group of individuals for the development of new possibilities and transformations, which is only possible in collaboration (Haapasaari, Engestr?m, Kerosuo, 2014; Engestr?m, Sannino, Virkkunen, 2014). Therefore, creative encounters in collaborative agency empower participants to consider ways to transform oppressive situations rather than seeing them as inexorable. By experiencing, creating, re-creating, and integrating themselves into their contexts, rather than accepting imposed measures, subjects transform their cultural and historical experiences (Freire, 1967). Collaborative agency implies different participants? histories, voices, actions, and reflections in and over activities to master and transform their realities. With best regards, Monica and Fernando 2018-03-23 14:40 GMT-03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil : > Thanks so much Monica and Fernando for being so generous to address > everyone's questions, including this one about Figure 3. > > In that regard, I wonder about your reading of that "network structure" as > relevant in re-organizing the students' agency. In your article, you write > about the Rio de Janeiro group, > > "However, they changed the network structure to ensure more comprehensive > communication among the groups" > > There is in this way of formulating an apparent assumption that there was > an initial intention in organising the structure, having learned from the > other previous movements/groups. You may (or may not) have empirical > evidence that this organization was indeed an intentional one in terms of > having considered prior experiences and having come to a decision about > what may work best. I would be interested in knowing about that evidence, > for I guess there is an interesting topic there concerning a tension > between the inherently emergent character and impossible to predict > implications of starting up online networks, on the one hand, and the use > of those networks for some purposes and intentions on the other. What are > your views on this tensions? And how would you say these existed in your > project? Has anyone (apart from the authors) thought about these? > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Monica Lemos > Sent: 20 March 2018 14:04 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools > > Dear all, > > About Figure 3, our first challenge was on how to express the movements in > activity systems, and soon we realized that it wouldn't be possible by > using previous representations of an activity system, due to the expansion > of the movements. > So, we decided to place the object of the movement (big sphere in the > center), and connect the participants (Facebook pages - small circles) to > it. Since the first movement was in the State of S?o Paulo, and the second > only in the city of S?o Paulo, there were some pages that were not used for > it. Consequently, the number of pages that were used in the second movement > is smaller than in the first. In addition, the organization (in relation to > centralization of the movements) started changing in the second movement. > That is, there were more pages connected to the main page on Facebook > (triangles). The third movement was again related to a scandal in the State > of S?o Paulo, and again, the number of pages on Facebook increased. > Since the fourth movement (from Rio de Janeiro) started after the movements > from S?o Paulo, they already started from a central page (instead of > fragmented pages from different schools in the first movement), that served > as a catalyst of information, and shared the activities with the pages of > each school. > > We will be back to discuss Collaborative agency and reply Andy's questions. > > Warm regards, > Fernando and Monica > > 2018-03-16 16:36 GMT-03:00 Peg Griffin : > > > I think Serena (whose graphic it is) now goes to a Society of Friends > high > > school. She has access to an enormously useful past for an activist to > > grow in! > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 2:36 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > schools > > > > Whoa, that is a great graphic, Peg! > > (like)!! :-) > > mike > > > > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Peg Griffin > wrote: > > > > > Here's a relevant link: http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/ > > > The Badass Teachers Association has existed for a few years now. This > > > is a blog with several posts by teachers who experienced the March 14 > > > Walkouts in the US. > > > The blog entries reflect a few different situations and institutions > > > that the Badass Teachers and their students experience (note that the > > > last blog entry extends from the Walkouts to Teacher Strikes and more). > > > > > > While I learned a lot from the account of the four movements in Brazil > > > and plan to learn more, here's a bit of a wondering that I have: > > > When I work with/for our young activists in the US, as time goes by, I > > > almost always find there's something said about the young activists > > pasts. > > > They have participated in movements where peers further along in some > > > ways, and sometimes adults further along in some ways, collaborated. > > > The young activists did what they could when they could and took in a > > > "whole" event which in many ways they merely understood but marching > > > and chanting and drawing were really effective so they were engaged! > > > These young activists then externalized what they had taken in in all > > > the ways they are doing now ... And the teachers and the rest of us > got > > further along, too! > > > The day before yesterday I was witnessing a Senate hearing. When the > > > hearing lies and evasions got terribly redundant, one of the Moms > > > Demand Action members seated next to me looked down to a live stream > > > on her phone of her daughter and classmates rallying outside the White > > > House. Other members remember the daughter tagging along to lobbying > > > and hearings and rallies and marches for years and the live stream and > > > hugs went around a couple of rows of us. Eventually those White House > > > protesting students marched from the White House to Capitol Hill and > > > the mom soon left to meet her daughter's group outside. Inside, we > > > were astonished at how much we were getting away with without the > > > powers that be warning we would be tossed out. Maybe it's the times > > > that are a changing or maybe it was just that our slogan t-shirts, > > > finger snaps, humphs and yesses were mild in contrast to the Code Pink > > > folks a few rows away -- great costumes and liberty crowns and great > > > signs. All sorts of forbidden expressive delights in a hearing run by > > > Grassley. > > > > > > By the way, Randi Weingarten who is president of the AFT (one of the > > > two prominent and somewhat staid teachers unions in the US) shocked > > > many in a recent e-mail when she easily referred to the Badass > > > Teachers Association as one of her co-leaders in the coalition of > > > forty organizations working on the April 20 National Actions in the > > > continuing move against gun violence. > > > (Adults are organizing the expansion of this anniversary of the > > > Columbine > > > Massacre,) > > > > > > Badass, hardcore, throwing shade -- those are some of my newly nuanced > > > vocabulary items that young activists have led me to learn in the past > > > year and a half. > > > > > > And I'm attaching an amazing piece of art work -- the artist is also > > > quite the author of the written word. > > > > > > Peg > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet > > > Gil > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:35 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > > schools > > > > > > Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the hope > > > to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with the > > > article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and social > > mobilisation): > > > > > > Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities and > > > challenges that emerge when educators try to implement makerspaces > > > activities with young children (5-6 years old), now that those have > > > become fashionable and educators are trying to see what's good in > > > there. In the meeting, there were experienced kindergarten teachers, > > > science center organisers, artist researchers, "just plain postdocs" > > > and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about children > > > and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in attempting to > > > implement makerspaces-like activities with younger children had to do > > > with the failure of the adults to appreciate and let the children own > > > and make the space theirs, which we find is the whole point of a maker > > > space. We pointed out our failure to see and listen how the kids see > > > and listen, so as to help them make. While many of us, adults, in > > > those situations tend to attend to the verb "to make" in the > > > transitive, as in "she makes some*thing*", thereby focusing on some > > > end in mind that provides with a model against which to exert > > > correction, we forget that, in most cases, the kids are in fact > > > *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in the > > > making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead of > > > supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means?in > > > praxis?we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it no > > > longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their > > > regular kindergarten spaces. > > > > > > Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth is > > > mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and respectfully > > > attend to where they are at, what *their* world and space is, and what > > > they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls clothing in school is > > > more regulated than GUNS in America" may not sound as erudite and > > > profound as more complex statements about the relations between > > > Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with capital letter). > > > But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is in > > > their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow backward view > > > of us adults who already know, but from the prospective forward view > > > of those who grow. And this is not to say that they are right or that > > > they are wrong; that would be, I think, missing the point. > > > Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do > > nothing," > > > are quite convincing to me. > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > ________________________________ > > > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > > > intransitive dimensions" > > > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > on behalf of Glassman, Michael > > > > > > Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > > schools > > > > > > Hi Harshad, > > > > > > Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure. If you want a hungry > > > person to not be hungry anymore you give them food. A student of mind > > > did a great study on homelessness. Basically the best thing you can > > > do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes. And if you want > > > people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away their guns. > > > > > > Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty much > > > made up over the last few centuries. > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > > schools > > > > > > 15 March 2018. > > > > > > Dear friends, > > > > > > I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, Mar > > > 14, > > > 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on it > > > is concerned, I put some views here. > > > > > > We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on > > > school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public place > > > (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, when > > > Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing civilized > > > society on continent America was not a comfortable one. The people > > > passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to day life > > > during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a responsible and > > > wisdom full culture in the blood of people living there. They fought > > > for independence and emerged with a unity named USA, they sustained > > > with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed through the severe > > > recession of 1930 after World War I, and they fought thousands of > > > kilometres away from native place along with allied nations in World > > > War II. > > > These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of the > > > time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with them. > > > We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this society > > > in the history of this people though freedom to keep gun/weapon was and > > has been a right. > > > > > > [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the > > protest. > > > I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.] > > > > > > After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over other > > > nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as > > > generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes present > > > youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could study the > > > history of the above path that was traveled by their ancestors. There > > > is much difference between reading a history and making living in the > > > same history. > > > > > > Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, ?*The only limit > > > to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.*? It > > > brought a new style and different culture with comfortable life and > > > inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new generations. The emerging > > > social constitution of society in USA and its systems as well as > > > institutions grew with a rapid progress and incessant changes. > > > Majority people believe that ?*dollars?* is the ultimate key towards > > > happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society worked as if > > > ?*science and technology?* has the entire competency to settle any > > > social problem. > > > > > > Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society is > > > stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are Philosophy, > > > Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and Economics. Uneven > > > growth in one or more pillars will destabilize the society. Now a day, > > > we are searching all the answers of social issues from *science and > > > technology*. We try to sort out every problem through *dollars* only, > > > and we do not know if it is sorted out or postponed. Neither we > > > honestly give adequate stress on ethical value nor do we have uniform > > > philosophy on which our society might rest. Family system is all most > > > paralyzed. Youth are encouraged or instigated to be independent and > > > self sufficient as soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat > > > them as freedom to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact > > > and every street and corners are equipped with a net-work to > > > misleading the youth. > > > > > > Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that the > > > subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, ?*Safety never > > > come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy and balanced > > > social system.*? > > > Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to bring > > > safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of shootings > > > shout for the grass root changes in social system with balance uniform > > > growth in the above said four pillars. It demands for reintroducing an > > > affectionate family system again and fundamental education that > > > dollars cannot always bring happiness and peace but where the real > > > happiness and peace lie. > > > > > > Harshad Dave > > > > > > Email: hhdave15@gmail.com > > > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Fernando and Monica, > > > > > > > > This is what is happening is the United States today, > > > > > > > > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students- > > > > from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest- > > > > gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html > > > > > > > > It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit this > > > > to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it will soon > > > > transform into another movement. But I think it goes to show how the > > > > work you have done, if only a beginning, is really important. I feel > > > > like we have missed this in U.S. academic circles. There is what is > > > > basically an idiotic article on fake news in the most recent > > > > Science, supposed to be our flagship. > > > > > > > > I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding what > > > > is going on and the role that what you call human-technology > > > > interaction is playing. > > > > > > > > I have a question for some activity theorists if they are interested > > > > in responding. In some ways what is going on does mirror an activity > > > > model, the multi-level reciprocal transformation (unless I am > > > > misunderstanding something). But as I said in an earlier message > > > > there is nobody coming in doing an intervention, the transformation > > > > itself is organic, more Dewey oriented I would say (I think maybe > > > > Friere also). Is there room for this in activity theory? > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity ; mike > > > > cole > > > > Cc: Lemos, Monica > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > > > schools > > > > > > > > Dear all, > > > > I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way some > > > > of you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention to > > > > reinvent the wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What I > > > > think it is important is that there is no "if" in human history, and > > > > we are where we are because we transform the places we live, as well > > > > as the tools we use. We can for sure ride horses in the cities, but > > > > the horses would sweat so much (considering the asphalt roads), that > > > > in a matter of > > > hours they would die. > > > > > > > > Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small part > > > > of what the movements organized by the students were.It is important > > > > to highlight, that despite people that were not in favor of protests > > > > (including some students!), it was the first time in Brazilian > > > > history that students (who were not supposed to interfere) > > > > interfered in a political decision. And they did so not only by > > > > using Facebook. As we mention in our paper, Facebook is one aspect > > > > of the protests, and we considered it as a mediational communicative > > > > tool. As I mentioned before in this answer, we as human beings use > > > > tools that are available, reshape them, and sometimes use them for a > > > > purpose that is > > > completely different from the original idea. > > > > I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a > > > > researcher because I am a secondary education teacher. We may have > > > > different points of view when you research something as an outsider, > > > > and when you participate (not as an ethnographer), but as a subject > > > > of the group. In my humble opinion, we are still trying to > > > > conceptualize (and > > > > stabilize) things that move faster than we can handle as scientists, > > > > or to compare contexts that cannot be compared. > > > > > > > > I am looking forward to your reactions. > > > > Best regards, > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________Fernando R. Cunha J?nior, PhD. > > > > > > > > http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com > > > > > > > > > > > > Em segunda-feira, 12 de mar?o de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike cole < > > > > mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu: > > > > > > > > Alfredo et al > > > > > > > > I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making the > > > > point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper. > > > > In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind (to > > > > use a metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time). > > > > HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the first > > > > time in my life. Call it 65 years. > > > > > > > > And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize such > > > matters. > > > > To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's > > > > description of the social sciences. In most American Universities, > > > > Psychology (cap > > > > P) is located in the social sciences. > > > > Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we > > > > approach it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists? > > > > Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human > > > > consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments in > > > > the laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on in my > > > > psychology department, AND as someone who can help understand the > > > > growth of social movements? This may also be a way to address and > > > > understanding of the overlap and variability in the ideas of > > > > Vygotsky and > > > Friere. > > > > > > > > Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated English > > > > we are spewing. I look forward to the discussion. > > > > > > > > Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to interpret > > > > it but I am doing a lousy job. > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael > > > > > and Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to > > Parklands. > > > > > > > > > > There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple > > > > > of articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most > > > > > often result from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative > > > > > leaps such that new forms of organization emerge from previous > ones. > > > > > So, David, I don't see why increments in the pace of circulation > > > > > (e.g., of > > > > > information) would not be expected to bring with them changes in > > > > > the organisation of the whole economy system. I would not say that > > > > > social media is just bringing a lot more of the same, just as I > > > > > would not a priori reject the possibility that bringing a lot more > > > > > of the same might not end up bringing new qualitative forms of > > > > > communicating. The observation that "like" is intransitive in > > > > > Facebook is interesting; but to me it needs to be put in its > > > > > larger context of use. And so, are we analysing Facebook as a > > > > > grammar closed up in itself, or as one more > > > > chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation? > > > > > > > > > > I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be > > > > > amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often > > > > > way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining with much > > > > > more complex verbal forms than Facebook's intransitive "likes", > > > > > only that the confrontations now seem to be moving to family's > > > > > dinner tables, quarrels among protesters in public squares, or > > > > > previously unheard of incarcerations for publishing tweets and rap > > > > > songs that critique the crown in a supposedly modern democracy like > > Spain (e.g.: > > > > > http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_ > > > > > 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there > > > > > are forms of organization that these technologies are affording > > > > > that may bring more positive changes, like the case again in Spain > > > > > of March 8th women's strike, the extent of which no politician or > > > > > journalist had anticipated and which led the government to quickly > > > > > adopt a much more equity-friendly discourse than even the evening > > > > > before (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, > > > > > probably that one strike, or that one social media that may have > > > > > made it possible, won't change the system. But they seem to > > > > > incrementally add to > > > > something, don't they? > > > > > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > > > ________________________________ > > > > > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > > > > > intransitive dimensions" > > > > > Free print available: > > > > > https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > on behalf of Andy Blunden > > > > > > > > > > Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39 > > > > > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > > > That headline does not exist, but is it this: > > > > > > > > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-med > > > > > ia > > > > > .h > > > > > tml > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > > Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story > > > > > > in today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors of > parkland." > > > > > > For some reason > > > > > it > > > > > > is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out > > > > > >there in xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again in > > > > > >the morning to see if it appears. > > > > > > It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's > > > > > >article, and > > > > > to > > > > > > David's comment that " it is very hard for me to pinpoint any > > > > > > actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was > > > > > > made > > > > > possible by > > > > > > Facebook." The voices and forms of speaking used by the > > > > > > students was > > > > > not, > > > > > > so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no > > > > > > quotations of > > > > > any > > > > > > students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was > > > > > > about collective action. > > > > > > Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts > > > > > > of the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of > > > > > > Facebook. In particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3. > > > > > > Were the people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " > > > > > > Once students achieved the object of the activity?in the first > > > > > > case, to avoid the closure of the schools?they focused the > > > > > > protests on another > > > > object"). > > > > > > > > > > > > Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection > > > > > > form > > > M1? > > > > > Did > > > > > > you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few > > > > > > hundred > > > > > versus > > > > > > 10,000 reactions? > > > > > > > > > > > > Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social > > issues? > > > > > There > > > > > > is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so it > > > > > > is difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing. > > > > > > Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use of > > > > > > the word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or > > > > > > some other gender inclusive term. > > > > > > > > > > > > David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working > > > > > > late." It got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A > > > > > > lot, > > > > it turns out. > > > > > > About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much > > > > > > faster all those people would be getting around on horses with > > > > > > all the horse plops > > > > > to > > > > > > clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning > > > > > > rush hour. :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > >> Hi David, > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any > > > > > >> time > > > > soon. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of > > > > > technology. > > > > > >> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology > > > > > >> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new type > > > > > >> of human-technology interaction. I don't agree with this > > phrasing. > > > > > >> I tend to think of > > > > > Facebook > > > > > >> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way > > > > > >> Facebook > > > > > is > > > > > >> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of > > > > > >> computer, radio and satellite communication an enormous step > > > > > >> forward in how humans communicate. I think so - it's really > > > > > >> extraordinary on a number of > > > > > levels > > > > > >> but that's really not the conversation for this article. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is > > > > > >> interesting and possibly important, especially when one > > > > > >> considers what is currently > > > > > going > > > > > >> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least > > > > > >> from > > > > > what I > > > > > >> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for > > > > > >> these students. Adults have been using it more for larger > > > > > >> organizational > > > > > events > > > > > >> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march). I have read > > > > > >> some articles on organizing on online forums (and actually > > > > > >> wrote a not very > > > > > good > > > > > >> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an > > > > > >> don't > > > > > have > > > > > >> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this > > > > > >> article might > > > > > be > > > > > >> an important step forward. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory > > > > > >> might be a > > > > > good > > > > > >> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between > > > > > >> the trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and > > > > > >> Paavola and > > > > > what is > > > > > >> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own > > > > > >> projects > > > > > and > > > > > >> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what > > > > > >> they are doing which is in turn changing the quality of their > > > > > >> activities. I have > > > > > my > > > > > >> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct > > > > > >> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem > > > > > >> primary vehicles) are only part of it. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and > > > > > >> should give us a lot to think about. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Michael > > > > > >> > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > > > > > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > > > >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg > > > > > >> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM > > > > > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > >> Brazilian > > > > > schools > > > > > >> > > > > > >> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant > > > > > >> technology already widely available in China and published a > > > > > >> single text using moveable > > > > > type > > > > > >> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social > > > > > >> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of > > > > > >> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other places, > > > > > >> Brazil, the Wars of > > > > > Religion in > > > > > >> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political) > > > > > >> State and ultimately those of a multi-confessional > > > > > >> (psychological) state, In the twentieth century, Ford similarly > > > > > >> exapted extant technology, this time nearly two millenia later > > > > > >> than China, and mass-produced automobiles > > > > > using > > > > > >> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with > > > > > >> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable > > > workers. > > > > > >> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and > > > > > >> in Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it would on > > > > > >> horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of technology that are > > > > > >> actually semiogenic--and > > > > > others > > > > > >> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually > > > > > >> slow the movement of people and new ideas. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook" > > > > > >> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help > > > > > >> Harvard freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently hot > > > > > >> to > > > > > >> "like") is really one of the former technologies?.There are > > > > > >> very clear signs , beyond the obvious > > > > > ones > > > > > >> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter > > > > > category, > > > > > >> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of > > > > > >> all, the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with > > > > > >> reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who > > > > > >> run > > > > the "Five Stars" > > > > > >> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors > > > > > >> try but > > > > > do > > > > > >> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post > > > > > >> first and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street > > > > > >> and the use of social media by the four movements in the > > > > > >> article (including one actually > > > > > called > > > > > >> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to > > > > > >> pinpoint > > > > > any > > > > > >> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was > > > > > >> made > > > > > possible > > > > > >> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic > > > > > >> power to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can > > > > > >> get a Model A in any color you like so long as it's black. > > > > > >> Facebook tells us the same thing, > > > > > but > > > > > >> makes the verb "like" intransitive. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> David Kellogg > > > > > >> Sangmyung University > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Recent Article in *Early Years* > > > > > >> > > > > > >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s > > > > > >> crises, and the child?s first interrogatives > > > > > >> > > > > >> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Free e-print available at: > > > > > >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > > > > > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> > > > > > >> wrote: > > > > > >> > > > > > >>> Dear xmca'ers, > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for > > > > > >>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon > > > > > >>> us > > > > soon. > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando > > > > > >>> Rezende da Cunha J?nior, is about two topics that were > > > > > >>> thematised in the last ISCAR congress and that ought to be of > > > > > >>> much relevance to current and future CHAT-related research: > > > > > >>> Social media and social movements. In particular, the article > > > > > >>> examines how students use social media for the organization > > > > > >>> and development of 4 social > > > > movements in Brazil. > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The article is attached and is Free access during the > > > > > >>> discussion > > > > > period. > > > > > >>> It can be accessed free in the following link: > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.137 > > > > > >>> 98 > > > > > >>> 23 > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the > > > > > >>> discussion and they will be introducing themselves soon. I > > > > > >>> hope you will find the article interesting and please don't > > > > > >>> be shy to share anything you might have learned reading it, > > > > > >>> anything you might wonder about it or that you would like see > > > > > >>> discussed. Having authors engage in dialogue is a great > > > > > >>> opportunity that this community offers and that makes sense > > > > > >>> the most when many of you > > > > participate. Good reading! > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> ? > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> Alfredo Jornet > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive > > > > > >>> and intransitive dimensions" > > > > > >>> Free print available: > > > > > >>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > >>> > > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student > Faculty of Educational Sciences > Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning > http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm > > P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland > +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) > Skype: monicaflemos > -- Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student Faculty of Educational Sciences Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) Skype: monicaflemos From andyb@marxists.org Tue Apr 17 06:51:09 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 23:51:09 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools In-Reply-To: References: <1520721034406.59651@iped.uio.no> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF245E@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <0bdd10ce-7411-8083-533f-44fcfb50e928@marxists.org> <1520858083490.87795@iped.uio.no> <2017557051.756650.1520967771201@mail.yahoo.com> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF29C7@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF2B93@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <1521156905718.23564@iped.uio.no> <001e01d3bd4e$f531b290$df9517b0$@att.net> <003601d3bd5e$1e105a40$5a310ec0$@att.net> <1521826827561.24749@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: What then is the relationship between the objects of *successive *protests, Monica? One of the reasons that the gun control protests by schoolkids in the US is so welcome, is that we suspect that further activism by the same social groups who were mobilised by the NRA/Congress refusal to respond to the school shooting, around other issues in the years ahead. Certainly, in the way the kids acted, it was clear that they were picking up all the intersectionality of recent movements, as well as demonstrating consciousness of the Civil Rights movement. Unlike a good lawyer, I'm asking you a question, Monica, that I don't have the answer for. But I still think that naively taking it that the self-reported object of an activity to be the motive for all the actions composing it is false insofar as it is meaningful and empty insofar as it is true. Also, the concept people have as they construct an object undergoes continual change in the course of the activity and its interaction with everything else going on. Our conception of the project (what you call "system of activity") has to be sensitive to this shifting of objects. Social transformations never happen because everyone had a blue print at the start, and yet they do happen. Paracelsus and Marx were exaggerating the difference between bees and humans, I think. What do you think? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/04/2018 11:06 PM, Monica Lemos wrote: > Dear all, > > Thank you all for the comments concerning our paper. I know the > article *Facebook > in Brazilian schools- Mobilizing to fight back* is not a hot topic anymore, > but let's get back to business and I will do my best to contemplate all the > co > mments. > > As I opened my talk at ISCAR-Quebec, I used to jump outside school walls, > either because there was no teachers or because I didn't like some classes > and there was something more interesting to do outside. Differently from > those students in the 4M, who jumped inside the school walls saying "school > is ours" and getting organized despite various limitations to improve > school, from cleaning to trying different ways of organizing classes. > Is it a change in the wind? A breeze maybe. > > It was also very interesting to follow the discussions on the walkout about > schools and guns, together with the persnal histories that came out with > it. It reminded me of some colleagues, teachers at public schools, who have > to ask students for their "little toys" (read it as guns) that were going > to be returned by the end of the class. > Could you share the results of the anti-gun students' movements? > > Concerning the readings on Focault, we didn't have legs to bring him to > the article. We are aware, though, of how important it would be not only to > enrich the discussion on social movements, but also to improve the notion > of collaborative agency. > > Indeed, FB worked as a method of organizing students' own activties and > also as a way to call people's attention on what they were doing or when > they needed help. During the occupations they used to have two assemblies, > in each school, in the beginning and in th eend of the day, so they would > decide who was going to do what, and what would be the next steps > concernig the object of the movement. These were posted on the FB pages as > form of reporting decisions and activties. In such assemblies, students > would decide who was going to be in charge of cleaning, cooking or being > Public Relation (PR). This PR would be the adimin of the FB pages who was > going to decide what would be on the pages. Those functions could change if > they decided so during the meetings. > They also made lives of manifestations on the streets, when students from > different schools met, or called from help, for example in one event when > the police blocked two sides of a street making it impossible for students > to move. So, somehow it became a form of meaning making and as form of > tool-and-result with all the weight words and other multimodal resoures can > have, maybe generating rhe contradiction between agitation, propaganda and > desire to change. Ephemeral however, because,as I mentioned before, they > migrated to WhatsApp, and because the movements themselves faded way. For > this reason Fernando and I discussed the notion of social movements as a > form of wildfire activties, based on Engestr?m (2009), see the link below > http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=208&doi=10.11648/j.hss.20170506.15 > . > > Andy, I have to say I trembled in your comments about the relation between > needs and object of the activties, but thank you David for solving the > puzzle. > > The notion of collaborative agency is still in progress, Fernando has > worked with it during his PhD and I have been working with it in other > works. I drafted an in depth discussion on the topic so we can move on with > the discussion. > > As one of the principles of CHAT, historicity plays a central role in > understanding problems and potentials in activities (Engestr?m, 1987; > 2001). By remembering what can be forgotten, appropriating from one?s own > memory means to understand why history is constituted in one way and not in > another, and why we become who we are, in which way it affects our > cultural, historical and social life in the present and in the future > (Souza, 2009:31). > > In historicity, traces of voices and lived experiences from the past > constitute how subjects act in the present for projecting and > transformation of activities in the future. Bearing historicity in mind, > Bakhtin/Voloshinov (1986), states that every word expresses the one in > relation to the other and that the utterances we produce, including our > creative work, carries other?s words with different levels of otherness and > different levels of ourselves. *The words of others manifest their own > expression and evaluation, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate* > (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1986 p.89). > > When different people get together, the traces of historicity and otherness > support encounters that can be creative and promote collaborative agency. > Mer?on (2009), based on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, defines encounters > as a form of affect, the author asserts that in encounters we can affect > and be affected, increase or hinder our power of acting, which also > increases or hinders our power of thinking. > > When different parts come together in encounters, they their different > historical background and different kinds of expertise can clash and melt > together, which provides different kinds of meanings and contributions to > an activity. > > According to Miettinen (2010; 2013) the reasons for encounters in > activities mostly relate to the need to expand an expertise by finding a > new product, raw material, or market, or solving a specific problem, > therefore such encounters demand creativity so people?s power of acting and > thinking increase. Miettinen (2014) states that creative encounters can be > an attempt to transcend the limits of individualism, in addition, the > promotion of creative encounters plays a central role in enabling > collaborative agency, where participants engage toward a joint object of > activity. > > In the same line, Lemos (2015; 2017) understood collaborative agency as a > process through which participants become subjects of an activity by > collaboratively constructing and envisioning new possibilities for their > futures, consequently, transforming their own lives. > > Considering the movement school-community, Yamazumi (2009) poses that by > creating hybrid and symbiotic activities in which various involved partners > inside and outside the school collaborate and reciprocate with one another > enables overcoming crisis. *The distinguishing feature of activity theory > is a developmental theory concerned with qualitative transformations over > time in human practice. Its central tenet is how human beings can become > agents who can change themselves as they change their own institutions and > practices in a way that mobilizes their collaborative agency (intellects > and energies to act). Making changes in our own real life-worlds is at the > heart of activity theory *(Yamazumi, 2009:36). > > The transformative stance of agency is only possible when individuals or > group of individuals work in togetherness and not as conglomerate of people > together (van Oers & H?nikainen, 2010) as in the traffic jam or as in the > elevator. Collaborative agency generates transformative agency due to > its possibility > to break away from a given frame of action and to take the initiative to > transform it which is enhanced by otherness constituted in historicity. > Thus new tools, concepts and practices produced in creative encounters > carry future-oriented visions loaded with initiative and commitment by > partcipants (Virkkunen, 2006; Sannino, Engestr?m & Lemos, 2016). Yet, from > a transformative perspective, agency is related to the collective activity > of a group of individuals for the development of new possibilities and > transformations, which is only possible in collaboration (Haapasaari, > Engestr?m, Kerosuo, 2014; Engestr?m, Sannino, Virkkunen, 2014). > > Therefore, creative encounters in collaborative agency empower participants > to consider ways to transform oppressive situations rather than seeing them > as inexorable. By experiencing, creating, re-creating, and integrating > themselves into their contexts, rather than accepting imposed measures, > subjects transform their cultural and historical experiences (Freire, > 1967). Collaborative agency implies different participants? histories, > voices, actions, and reflections in and over activities to master and > transform their realities. > > > With best regards, > > Monica and Fernando > > > 2018-03-23 14:40 GMT-03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil : > >> Thanks so much Monica and Fernando for being so generous to address >> everyone's questions, including this one about Figure 3. >> >> In that regard, I wonder about your reading of that "network structure" as >> relevant in re-organizing the students' agency. In your article, you write >> about the Rio de Janeiro group, >> >> "However, they changed the network structure to ensure more comprehensive >> communication among the groups" >> >> There is in this way of formulating an apparent assumption that there was >> an initial intention in organising the structure, having learned from the >> other previous movements/groups. You may (or may not) have empirical >> evidence that this organization was indeed an intentional one in terms of >> having considered prior experiences and having come to a decision about >> what may work best. I would be interested in knowing about that evidence, >> for I guess there is an interesting topic there concerning a tension >> between the inherently emergent character and impossible to predict >> implications of starting up online networks, on the one hand, and the use >> of those networks for some purposes and intentions on the other. What are >> your views on this tensions? And how would you say these existed in your >> project? Has anyone (apart from the authors) thought about these? >> Alfredo Jornet >> ________________________________ >> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and >> intransitive dimensions" >> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Monica Lemos >> Sent: 20 March 2018 14:04 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools >> >> Dear all, >> >> About Figure 3, our first challenge was on how to express the movements in >> activity systems, and soon we realized that it wouldn't be possible by >> using previous representations of an activity system, due to the expansion >> of the movements. >> So, we decided to place the object of the movement (big sphere in the >> center), and connect the participants (Facebook pages - small circles) to >> it. Since the first movement was in the State of S?o Paulo, and the second >> only in the city of S?o Paulo, there were some pages that were not used for >> it. Consequently, the number of pages that were used in the second movement >> is smaller than in the first. In addition, the organization (in relation to >> centralization of the movements) started changing in the second movement. >> That is, there were more pages connected to the main page on Facebook >> (triangles). The third movement was again related to a scandal in the State >> of S?o Paulo, and again, the number of pages on Facebook increased. >> Since the fourth movement (from Rio de Janeiro) started after the movements >> from S?o Paulo, they already started from a central page (instead of >> fragmented pages from different schools in the first movement), that served >> as a catalyst of information, and shared the activities with the pages of >> each school. >> >> We will be back to discuss Collaborative agency and reply Andy's questions. >> >> Warm regards, >> Fernando and Monica >> >> 2018-03-16 16:36 GMT-03:00 Peg Griffin : >> >>> I think Serena (whose graphic it is) now goes to a Society of Friends >> high >>> school. She has access to an enormously useful past for an activist to >>> grow in! >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >>> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 2:36 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian >> schools >>> Whoa, that is a great graphic, Peg! >>> (like)!! :-) >>> mike >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Peg Griffin >> wrote: >>>> Here's a relevant link: http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/ >>>> The Badass Teachers Association has existed for a few years now. This >>>> is a blog with several posts by teachers who experienced the March 14 >>>> Walkouts in the US. >>>> The blog entries reflect a few different situations and institutions >>>> that the Badass Teachers and their students experience (note that the >>>> last blog entry extends from the Walkouts to Teacher Strikes and more). >>>> >>>> While I learned a lot from the account of the four movements in Brazil >>>> and plan to learn more, here's a bit of a wondering that I have: >>>> When I work with/for our young activists in the US, as time goes by, I >>>> almost always find there's something said about the young activists >>> pasts. >>>> They have participated in movements where peers further along in some >>>> ways, and sometimes adults further along in some ways, collaborated. >>>> The young activists did what they could when they could and took in a >>>> "whole" event which in many ways they merely understood but marching >>>> and chanting and drawing were really effective so they were engaged! >>>> These young activists then externalized what they had taken in in all >>>> the ways they are doing now ... And the teachers and the rest of us >> got >>> further along, too! >>>> The day before yesterday I was witnessing a Senate hearing. When the >>>> hearing lies and evasions got terribly redundant, one of the Moms >>>> Demand Action members seated next to me looked down to a live stream >>>> on her phone of her daughter and classmates rallying outside the White >>>> House. Other members remember the daughter tagging along to lobbying >>>> and hearings and rallies and marches for years and the live stream and >>>> hugs went around a couple of rows of us. Eventually those White House >>>> protesting students marched from the White House to Capitol Hill and >>>> the mom soon left to meet her daughter's group outside. Inside, we >>>> were astonished at how much we were getting away with without the >>>> powers that be warning we would be tossed out. Maybe it's the times >>>> that are a changing or maybe it was just that our slogan t-shirts, >>>> finger snaps, humphs and yesses were mild in contrast to the Code Pink >>>> folks a few rows away -- great costumes and liberty crowns and great >>>> signs. All sorts of forbidden expressive delights in a hearing run by >>>> Grassley. >>>> >>>> By the way, Randi Weingarten who is president of the AFT (one of the >>>> two prominent and somewhat staid teachers unions in the US) shocked >>>> many in a recent e-mail when she easily referred to the Badass >>>> Teachers Association as one of her co-leaders in the coalition of >>>> forty organizations working on the April 20 National Actions in the >>>> continuing move against gun violence. >>>> (Adults are organizing the expansion of this anniversary of the >>>> Columbine >>>> Massacre,) >>>> >>>> Badass, hardcore, throwing shade -- those are some of my newly nuanced >>>> vocabulary items that young activists have led me to learn in the past >>>> year and a half. >>>> >>>> And I'm attaching an amazing piece of art work -- the artist is also >>>> quite the author of the written word. >>>> >>>> Peg >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet >>>> Gil >>>> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:35 PM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian >>>> schools >>>> >>>> Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the hope >>>> to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with the >>>> article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and social >>> mobilisation): >>>> Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities and >>>> challenges that emerge when educators try to implement makerspaces >>>> activities with young children (5-6 years old), now that those have >>>> become fashionable and educators are trying to see what's good in >>>> there. In the meeting, there were experienced kindergarten teachers, >>>> science center organisers, artist researchers, "just plain postdocs" >>>> and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about children >>>> and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in attempting to >>>> implement makerspaces-like activities with younger children had to do >>>> with the failure of the adults to appreciate and let the children own >>>> and make the space theirs, which we find is the whole point of a maker >>>> space. We pointed out our failure to see and listen how the kids see >>>> and listen, so as to help them make. While many of us, adults, in >>>> those situations tend to attend to the verb "to make" in the >>>> transitive, as in "she makes some*thing*", thereby focusing on some >>>> end in mind that provides with a model against which to exert >>>> correction, we forget that, in most cases, the kids are in fact >>>> *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in the >>>> making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead of >>>> supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means?in >>>> praxis?we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it no >>>> longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their >>>> regular kindergarten spaces. >>>> >>>> Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth is >>>> mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and respectfully >>>> attend to where they are at, what *their* world and space is, and what >>>> they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls clothing in school is >>>> more regulated than GUNS in America" may not sound as erudite and >>>> profound as more complex statements about the relations between >>>> Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with capital letter). >>>> But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is in >>>> their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow backward view >>>> of us adults who already know, but from the prospective forward view >>>> of those who grow. And this is not to say that they are right or that >>>> they are wrong; that would be, I think, missing the point. >>>> Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do >>> nothing," >>>> are quite convincing to me. >>>> >>>> Alfredo Jornet >>>> ________________________________ >>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and >>>> intransitive dimensions" >>>> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr >>>> >>>> ________________________________________ >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> on behalf of Glassman, Michael >>>> >>>> Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36 >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian >>>> schools >>>> >>>> Hi Harshad, >>>> >>>> Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure. If you want a hungry >>>> person to not be hungry anymore you give them food. A student of mind >>>> did a great study on homelessness. Basically the best thing you can >>>> do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes. And if you want >>>> people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away their guns. >>>> >>>> Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty much >>>> made up over the last few centuries. >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave >>>> Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian >>>> schools >>>> >>>> 15 March 2018. >>>> >>>> Dear friends, >>>> >>>> I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, Mar >>>> 14, >>>> 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on it >>>> is concerned, I put some views here. >>>> >>>> We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on >>>> school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public place >>>> (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, when >>>> Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing civilized >>>> society on continent America was not a comfortable one. The people >>>> passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to day life >>>> during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a responsible and >>>> wisdom full culture in the blood of people living there. They fought >>>> for independence and emerged with a unity named USA, they sustained >>>> with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed through the severe >>>> recession of 1930 after World War I, and they fought thousands of >>>> kilometres away from native place along with allied nations in World >>>> War II. >>>> These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of the >>>> time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with them. >>>> We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this society >>>> in the history of this people though freedom to keep gun/weapon was and >>> has been a right. >>>> [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the >>> protest. >>>> I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.] >>>> >>>> After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over other >>>> nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as >>>> generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes present >>>> youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could study the >>>> history of the above path that was traveled by their ancestors. There >>>> is much difference between reading a history and making living in the >>>> same history. >>>> >>>> Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, ?*The only limit >>>> to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.*? It >>>> brought a new style and different culture with comfortable life and >>>> inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new generations. The emerging >>>> social constitution of society in USA and its systems as well as >>>> institutions grew with a rapid progress and incessant changes. >>>> Majority people believe that ?*dollars?* is the ultimate key towards >>>> happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society worked as if >>>> ?*science and technology?* has the entire competency to settle any >>>> social problem. >>>> >>>> Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society is >>>> stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are Philosophy, >>>> Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and Economics. Uneven >>>> growth in one or more pillars will destabilize the society. Now a day, >>>> we are searching all the answers of social issues from *science and >>>> technology*. We try to sort out every problem through *dollars* only, >>>> and we do not know if it is sorted out or postponed. Neither we >>>> honestly give adequate stress on ethical value nor do we have uniform >>>> philosophy on which our society might rest. Family system is all most >>>> paralyzed. Youth are encouraged or instigated to be independent and >>>> self sufficient as soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat >>>> them as freedom to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact >>>> and every street and corners are equipped with a net-work to >>>> misleading the youth. >>>> >>>> Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that the >>>> subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, ?*Safety never >>>> come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy and balanced >>>> social system.*? >>>> Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to bring >>>> safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of shootings >>>> shout for the grass root changes in social system with balance uniform >>>> growth in the above said four pillars. It demands for reintroducing an >>>> affectionate family system again and fundamental education that >>>> dollars cannot always bring happiness and peace but where the real >>>> happiness and peace lie. >>>> >>>> Harshad Dave >>>> >>>> Email: hhdave15@gmail.com >>>> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael >>>> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Fernando and Monica, >>>>> >>>>> This is what is happening is the United States today, >>>>> >>>>> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students- >>>>> from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest- >>>>> gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html >>>>> >>>>> It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit this >>>>> to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it will soon >>>>> transform into another movement. But I think it goes to show how the >>>>> work you have done, if only a beginning, is really important. I feel >>>>> like we have missed this in U.S. academic circles. There is what is >>>>> basically an idiotic article on fake news in the most recent >>>>> Science, supposed to be our flagship. >>>>> >>>>> I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding what >>>>> is going on and the role that what you call human-technology >>>>> interaction is playing. >>>>> >>>>> I have a question for some activity theorists if they are interested >>>>> in responding. In some ways what is going on does mirror an activity >>>>> model, the multi-level reciprocal transformation (unless I am >>>>> misunderstanding something). But as I said in an earlier message >>>>> there is nobody coming in doing an intervention, the transformation >>>>> itself is organic, more Dewey oriented I would say (I think maybe >>>>> Friere also). Is there room for this in activity theory? >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha >>>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity ; mike >>>>> cole >>>>> Cc: Lemos, Monica >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian >>>>> schools >>>>> >>>>> Dear all, >>>>> I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way some >>>>> of you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention to >>>>> reinvent the wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What I >>>>> think it is important is that there is no "if" in human history, and >>>>> we are where we are because we transform the places we live, as well >>>>> as the tools we use. We can for sure ride horses in the cities, but >>>>> the horses would sweat so much (considering the asphalt roads), that >>>>> in a matter of >>>> hours they would die. >>>>> Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small part >>>>> of what the movements organized by the students were.It is important >>>>> to highlight, that despite people that were not in favor of protests >>>>> (including some students!), it was the first time in Brazilian >>>>> history that students (who were not supposed to interfere) >>>>> interfered in a political decision. And they did so not only by >>>>> using Facebook. As we mention in our paper, Facebook is one aspect >>>>> of the protests, and we considered it as a mediational communicative >>>>> tool. As I mentioned before in this answer, we as human beings use >>>>> tools that are available, reshape them, and sometimes use them for a >>>>> purpose that is >>>> completely different from the original idea. >>>>> I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a >>>>> researcher because I am a secondary education teacher. We may have >>>>> different points of view when you research something as an outsider, >>>>> and when you participate (not as an ethnographer), but as a subject >>>>> of the group. In my humble opinion, we are still trying to >>>>> conceptualize (and >>>>> stabilize) things that move faster than we can handle as scientists, >>>>> or to compare contexts that cannot be compared. >>>>> >>>>> I am looking forward to your reactions. >>>>> Best regards, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> __________________________Fernando R. Cunha J?nior, PhD. >>>>> >>>>> http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Em segunda-feira, 12 de mar?o de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike cole < >>>>> mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu: >>>>> >>>>> Alfredo et al >>>>> >>>>> I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making the >>>>> point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper. >>>>> In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind (to >>>>> use a metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time). >>>>> HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the first >>>>> time in my life. Call it 65 years. >>>>> >>>>> And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize such >>>> matters. >>>>> To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's >>>>> description of the social sciences. In most American Universities, >>>>> Psychology (cap >>>>> P) is located in the social sciences. >>>>> Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we >>>>> approach it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists? >>>>> Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human >>>>> consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments in >>>>> the laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on in my >>>>> psychology department, AND as someone who can help understand the >>>>> growth of social movements? This may also be a way to address and >>>>> understanding of the overlap and variability in the ideas of >>>>> Vygotsky and >>>> Friere. >>>>> Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated English >>>>> we are spewing. I look forward to the discussion. >>>>> >>>>> Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to interpret >>>>> it but I am doing a lousy job. >>>>> >>>>> mike >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil >>>>> >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael >>>>>> and Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to >>> Parklands. >>>>>> There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple >>>>>> of articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most >>>>>> often result from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative >>>>>> leaps such that new forms of organization emerge from previous >> ones. >>>>>> So, David, I don't see why increments in the pace of circulation >>>>>> (e.g., of >>>>>> information) would not be expected to bring with them changes in >>>>>> the organisation of the whole economy system. I would not say that >>>>>> social media is just bringing a lot more of the same, just as I >>>>>> would not a priori reject the possibility that bringing a lot more >>>>>> of the same might not end up bringing new qualitative forms of >>>>>> communicating. The observation that "like" is intransitive in >>>>>> Facebook is interesting; but to me it needs to be put in its >>>>>> larger context of use. And so, are we analysing Facebook as a >>>>>> grammar closed up in itself, or as one more >>>>> chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation? >>>>>> I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be >>>>>> amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often >>>>>> way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining with much >>>>>> more complex verbal forms than Facebook's intransitive "likes", >>>>>> only that the confrontations now seem to be moving to family's >>>>>> dinner tables, quarrels among protesters in public squares, or >>>>>> previously unheard of incarcerations for publishing tweets and rap >>>>>> songs that critique the crown in a supposedly modern democracy like >>> Spain (e.g.: >>>>>> http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_ >>>>>> 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there >>>>>> are forms of organization that these technologies are affording >>>>>> that may bring more positive changes, like the case again in Spain >>>>>> of March 8th women's strike, the extent of which no politician or >>>>>> journalist had anticipated and which led the government to quickly >>>>>> adopt a much more equity-friendly discourse than even the evening >>>>>> before (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, >>>>>> probably that one strike, or that one social media that may have >>>>>> made it possible, won't change the system. But they seem to >>>>>> incrementally add to >>>>> something, don't they? >>>>>> Alfredo Jornet >>>>>> ________________________________ >>>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and >>>>>> intransitive dimensions" >>>>>> Free print available: >>>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr >>>>>> >>>>>> ________________________________________ >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> on behalf of Andy Blunden >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39 >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in >>>>>> Brazilian schools >>>>>> >>>>>> That headline does not exist, but is it this: >>>>>> >>>>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-med >>>>>> ia >>>>>> .h >>>>>> tml >>>>>> >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote: >>>>>>> Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story >>>>>>> in today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors of >> parkland." >>>>>>> For some reason >>>>>> it >>>>>>> is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out >>>>>>> there in xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again in >>>>>>> the morning to see if it appears. >>>>>>> It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's >>>>>>> article, and >>>>>> to >>>>>>> David's comment that " it is very hard for me to pinpoint any >>>>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was >>>>>>> made >>>>>> possible by >>>>>>> Facebook." The voices and forms of speaking used by the >>>>>>> students was >>>>>> not, >>>>>>> so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no >>>>>>> quotations of >>>>>> any >>>>>>> students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was >>>>>>> about collective action. >>>>>>> Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts >>>>>>> of the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of >>>>>>> Facebook. In particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3. >>>>>>> Were the people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " >>>>>>> Once students achieved the object of the activity?in the first >>>>>>> case, to avoid the closure of the schools?they focused the >>>>>>> protests on another >>>>> object"). >>>>>>> Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection >>>>>>> form >>>> M1? >>>>>> Did >>>>>>> you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few >>>>>>> hundred >>>>>> versus >>>>>>> 10,000 reactions? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social >>> issues? >>>>>> There >>>>>>> is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so it >>>>>>> is difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing. >>>>>>> Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use of >>>>>>> the word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or >>>>>>> some other gender inclusive term. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working >>>>>>> late." It got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A >>>>>>> lot, >>>>> it turns out. >>>>>>> About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much >>>>>>> faster all those people would be getting around on horses with >>>>>>> all the horse plops >>>>>> to >>>>>>> clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning >>>>>>> rush hour. :-) >>>>>>> >>>>>>> mike >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael >>>>>>> >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hi David, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any >>>>>>>> time >>>>> soon. >>>>>>>> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of >>>>>> technology. >>>>>>>> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology >>>>>>>> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new type >>>>>>>> of human-technology interaction. I don't agree with this >>> phrasing. >>>>>>>> I tend to think of >>>>>> Facebook >>>>>>>> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way >>>>>>>> Facebook >>>>>> is >>>>>>>> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of >>>>>>>> computer, radio and satellite communication an enormous step >>>>>>>> forward in how humans communicate. I think so - it's really >>>>>>>> extraordinary on a number of >>>>>> levels >>>>>>>> but that's really not the conversation for this article. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is >>>>>>>> interesting and possibly important, especially when one >>>>>>>> considers what is currently >>>>>> going >>>>>>>> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least >>>>>>>> from >>>>>> what I >>>>>>>> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for >>>>>>>> these students. Adults have been using it more for larger >>>>>>>> organizational >>>>>> events >>>>>>>> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march). I have read >>>>>>>> some articles on organizing on online forums (and actually >>>>>>>> wrote a not very >>>>>> good >>>>>>>> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an >>>>>>>> don't >>>>>> have >>>>>>>> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this >>>>>>>> article might >>>>>> be >>>>>>>> an important step forward. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory >>>>>>>> might be a >>>>>> good >>>>>>>> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between >>>>>>>> the trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and >>>>>>>> Paavola and >>>>>> what is >>>>>>>> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own >>>>>>>> projects >>>>>> and >>>>>>>> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what >>>>>>>> they are doing which is in turn changing the quality of their >>>>>>>> activities. I have >>>>>> my >>>>>>>> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct >>>>>>>> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem >>>>>>>> primary vehicles) are only part of it. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and >>>>>>>> should give us a lot to think about. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Michael >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> -----Original Message----- >>>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ >>>>>>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg >>>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM >>>>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in >>>>>>>> Brazilian >>>>>> schools >>>>>>>> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant >>>>>>>> technology already widely available in China and published a >>>>>>>> single text using moveable >>>>>> type >>>>>>>> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social >>>>>>>> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of >>>>>>>> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other places, >>>>>>>> Brazil, the Wars of >>>>>> Religion in >>>>>>>> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political) >>>>>>>> State and ultimately those of a multi-confessional >>>>>>>> (psychological) state, In the twentieth century, Ford similarly >>>>>>>> exapted extant technology, this time nearly two millenia later >>>>>>>> than China, and mass-produced automobiles >>>>>> using >>>>>>>> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with >>>>>>>> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable >>>> workers. >>>>>>>> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and >>>>>>>> in Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it would on >>>>>>>> horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of technology that are >>>>>>>> actually semiogenic--and >>>>>> others >>>>>>>> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually >>>>>>>> slow the movement of people and new ideas. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook" >>>>>>>> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help >>>>>>>> Harvard freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently hot >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>> "like") is really one of the former technologies?.There are >>>>>>>> very clear signs , beyond the obvious >>>>>> ones >>>>>>>> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter >>>>>> category, >>>>>>>> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of >>>>>>>> all, the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with >>>>>>>> reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who >>>>>>>> run >>>>> the "Five Stars" >>>>>>>> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors >>>>>>>> try but >>>>>> do >>>>>>>> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post >>>>>>>> first and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street >>>>>>>> and the use of social media by the four movements in the >>>>>>>> article (including one actually >>>>>> called >>>>>>>> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to >>>>>>>> pinpoint >>>>>> any >>>>>>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was >>>>>>>> made >>>>>> possible >>>>>>>> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic >>>>>>>> power to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can >>>>>>>> get a Model A in any color you like so long as it's black. >>>>>>>> Facebook tells us the same thing, >>>>>> but >>>>>>>> makes the verb "like" intransitive. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> David Kellogg >>>>>>>> Sangmyung University >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Recent Article in *Early Years* >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s >>>>>>>> crises, and the child?s first interrogatives >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Free e-print available at: >>>>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < >>>>>> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Dear xmca'ers, >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for >>>>>>>>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon >>>>>>>>> us >>>>> soon. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando >>>>>>>>> Rezende da Cunha J?nior, is about two topics that were >>>>>>>>> thematised in the last ISCAR congress and that ought to be of >>>>>>>>> much relevance to current and future CHAT-related research: >>>>>>>>> Social media and social movements. In particular, the article >>>>>>>>> examines how students use social media for the organization >>>>>>>>> and development of 4 social >>>>> movements in Brazil. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The article is attached and is Free access during the >>>>>>>>> discussion >>>>>> period. >>>>>>>>> It can be accessed free in the following link: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.137 >>>>>>>>> 98 >>>>>>>>> 23 >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the >>>>>>>>> discussion and they will be introducing themselves soon. I >>>>>>>>> hope you will find the article interesting and please don't >>>>>>>>> be shy to share anything you might have learned reading it, >>>>>>>>> anything you might wonder about it or that you would like see >>>>>>>>> discussed. Having authors engage in dialogue is a great >>>>>>>>> opportunity that this community offers and that makes sense >>>>>>>>> the most when many of you >>>>> participate. Good reading! >>>>>>>>> ? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Alfredo Jornet >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive >>>>>>>>> and intransitive dimensions" >>>>>>>>> Free print available: >>>>>>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr >>>>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>> >>> >> >> -- >> Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student >> Faculty of Educational Sciences >> Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning >> http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm >> >> P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland >> +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) >> Skype: monicaflemos >> > > From glassman.13@osu.edu Tue Apr 17 09:50:37 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:50:37 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools In-Reply-To: References: <1520721034406.59651@iped.uio.no> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF245E@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <0bdd10ce-7411-8083-533f-44fcfb50e928@marxists.org> <1520858083490.87795@iped.uio.no> <2017557051.756650.1520967771201@mail.yahoo.com> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF29C7@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF2B93@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <1521156905718.23564@iped.uio.no> <001e01d3bd4e$f531b290$df9517b0$@att.net> <003601d3bd5e$1e105a40$5a310ec0$@att.net> <1521826827561.24749@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B07CF6@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Hi Monica and Fernando, I have a question. Is there much playing of MUVE (multi-user virtual reality ecologies) games (e.g. World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Everquest, Call of Duty) in Brazil among adolescents. I ask this because much of what you describe among the students, and what I see among the Parkland students, and perhaps Black Lives Matter (although there hasn't been nearly the media exploration of BLM, but I was just at a presentation that discussed the social networking practices) is really reminiscent of the way activities in these games are described to me. I am just getting as graduate students the first generation that grew up with and are still playing these games as part of their everyday activities. The abilities to develop groups where different people take on different tasks at different times as they attempt to reach their goals (raiding a village, taking over an armory) seem to mirror much of what you describe. In the case of these games the objects are important but they're not important. Meaning they are ephermal. They are in the moment. What transfers from time to time is not the object, which might or might not have relations to each other (and we can overemphasize those relationships suggesting that there is an expertise in pursuing objects which would not exist if they are ephermal) but the ability to engage in this type of process. Something that is not generally taught in school. So what you refer to as collaborative agency is taught within these MUVEs and then used as we become aware and desire goals, receding when the goals are realized, but there for the next goal. We keep trying to put our own stamps on these kids. That they are doing this because they are aware of things that happened in the past, other movements and such. I wonder if this is true. I wonder instead if it is the result of a new type of education. An education many of them share, at least in many part of the world, but somebody like me has never been part of. You can learn a lot when you have to wait for the trolls to arrive so your raiding party is complete and you can take over a village. Michael -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Monica Lemos Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 9:06 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools Dear all, Thank you all for the comments concerning our paper. I know the article *Facebook in Brazilian schools- Mobilizing to fight back* is not a hot topic anymore, but let's get back to business and I will do my best to contemplate all the co mments. As I opened my talk at ISCAR-Quebec, I used to jump outside school walls, either because there was no teachers or because I didn't like some classes and there was something more interesting to do outside. Differently from those students in the 4M, who jumped inside the school walls saying "school is ours" and getting organized despite various limitations to improve school, from cleaning to trying different ways of organizing classes. Is it a change in the wind? A breeze maybe. It was also very interesting to follow the discussions on the walkout about schools and guns, together with the persnal histories that came out with it. It reminded me of some colleagues, teachers at public schools, who have to ask students for their "little toys" (read it as guns) that were going to be returned by the end of the class. Could you share the results of the anti-gun students' movements? Concerning the readings on Focault, we didn't have legs to bring him to the article. We are aware, though, of how important it would be not only to enrich the discussion on social movements, but also to improve the notion of collaborative agency. Indeed, FB worked as a method of organizing students' own activties and also as a way to call people's attention on what they were doing or when they needed help. During the occupations they used to have two assemblies, in each school, in the beginning and in th eend of the day, so they would decide who was going to do what, and what would be the next steps concernig the object of the movement. These were posted on the FB pages as form of reporting decisions and activties. In such assemblies, students would decide who was going to be in charge of cleaning, cooking or being Public Relation (PR). This PR would be the adimin of the FB pages who was going to decide what would be on the pages. Those functions could change if they decided so during the meetings. They also made lives of manifestations on the streets, when students from different schools met, or called from help, for example in one event when the police blocked two sides of a street making it impossible for students to move. So, somehow it became a form of meaning making and as form of tool-and-result with all the weight words and other multimodal resoures can have, maybe generating rhe contradiction between agitation, propaganda and desire to change. Ephemeral however, because,as I mentioned before, they migrated to WhatsApp, and because the movements themselves faded way. For this reason Fernando and I discussed the notion of social movements as a form of wildfire activties, based on Engestr?m (2009), see the link below http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=208&doi=10.11648/j.hss.20170506.15 . Andy, I have to say I trembled in your comments about the relation between needs and object of the activties, but thank you David for solving the puzzle. The notion of collaborative agency is still in progress, Fernando has worked with it during his PhD and I have been working with it in other works. I drafted an in depth discussion on the topic so we can move on with the discussion. As one of the principles of CHAT, historicity plays a central role in understanding problems and potentials in activities (Engestr?m, 1987; 2001). By remembering what can be forgotten, appropriating from one?s own memory means to understand why history is constituted in one way and not in another, and why we become who we are, in which way it affects our cultural, historical and social life in the present and in the future (Souza, 2009:31). In historicity, traces of voices and lived experiences from the past constitute how subjects act in the present for projecting and transformation of activities in the future. Bearing historicity in mind, Bakhtin/Voloshinov (1986), states that every word expresses the one in relation to the other and that the utterances we produce, including our creative work, carries other?s words with different levels of otherness and different levels of ourselves. *The words of others manifest their own expression and evaluation, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate* (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1986 p.89). When different people get together, the traces of historicity and otherness support encounters that can be creative and promote collaborative agency. Mer?on (2009), based on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, defines encounters as a form of affect, the author asserts that in encounters we can affect and be affected, increase or hinder our power of acting, which also increases or hinders our power of thinking. When different parts come together in encounters, they their different historical background and different kinds of expertise can clash and melt together, which provides different kinds of meanings and contributions to an activity. According to Miettinen (2010; 2013) the reasons for encounters in activities mostly relate to the need to expand an expertise by finding a new product, raw material, or market, or solving a specific problem, therefore such encounters demand creativity so people?s power of acting and thinking increase. Miettinen (2014) states that creative encounters can be an attempt to transcend the limits of individualism, in addition, the promotion of creative encounters plays a central role in enabling collaborative agency, where participants engage toward a joint object of activity. In the same line, Lemos (2015; 2017) understood collaborative agency as a process through which participants become subjects of an activity by collaboratively constructing and envisioning new possibilities for their futures, consequently, transforming their own lives. Considering the movement school-community, Yamazumi (2009) poses that by creating hybrid and symbiotic activities in which various involved partners inside and outside the school collaborate and reciprocate with one another enables overcoming crisis. *The distinguishing feature of activity theory is a developmental theory concerned with qualitative transformations over time in human practice. Its central tenet is how human beings can become agents who can change themselves as they change their own institutions and practices in a way that mobilizes their collaborative agency (intellects and energies to act). Making changes in our own real life-worlds is at the heart of activity theory *(Yamazumi, 2009:36). The transformative stance of agency is only possible when individuals or group of individuals work in togetherness and not as conglomerate of people together (van Oers & H?nikainen, 2010) as in the traffic jam or as in the elevator. Collaborative agency generates transformative agency due to its possibility to break away from a given frame of action and to take the initiative to transform it which is enhanced by otherness constituted in historicity. Thus new tools, concepts and practices produced in creative encounters carry future-oriented visions loaded with initiative and commitment by partcipants (Virkkunen, 2006; Sannino, Engestr?m & Lemos, 2016). Yet, from a transformative perspective, agency is related to the collective activity of a group of individuals for the development of new possibilities and transformations, which is only possible in collaboration (Haapasaari, Engestr?m, Kerosuo, 2014; Engestr?m, Sannino, Virkkunen, 2014). Therefore, creative encounters in collaborative agency empower participants to consider ways to transform oppressive situations rather than seeing them as inexorable. By experiencing, creating, re-creating, and integrating themselves into their contexts, rather than accepting imposed measures, subjects transform their cultural and historical experiences (Freire, 1967). Collaborative agency implies different participants? histories, voices, actions, and reflections in and over activities to master and transform their realities. With best regards, Monica and Fernando 2018-03-23 14:40 GMT-03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil : > Thanks so much Monica and Fernando for being so generous to address > everyone's questions, including this one about Figure 3. > > In that regard, I wonder about your reading of that "network > structure" as relevant in re-organizing the students' agency. In your > article, you write about the Rio de Janeiro group, > > "However, they changed the network structure to ensure more > comprehensive communication among the groups" > > There is in this way of formulating an apparent assumption that there > was an initial intention in organising the structure, having learned > from the other previous movements/groups. You may (or may not) have > empirical evidence that this organization was indeed an intentional > one in terms of having considered prior experiences and having come to > a decision about what may work best. I would be interested in knowing > about that evidence, for I guess there is an interesting topic there > concerning a tension between the inherently emergent character and > impossible to predict implications of starting up online networks, on > the one hand, and the use of those networks for some purposes and > intentions on the other. What are your views on this tensions? And how > would you say these existed in your project? Has anyone (apart from the authors) thought about these? > Alfredo Jornet > ________________________________ > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > intransitive dimensions" > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Monica Lemos > > Sent: 20 March 2018 14:04 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > schools > > Dear all, > > About Figure 3, our first challenge was on how to express the > movements in activity systems, and soon we realized that it wouldn't > be possible by using previous representations of an activity system, > due to the expansion of the movements. > So, we decided to place the object of the movement (big sphere in the > center), and connect the participants (Facebook pages - small circles) > to it. Since the first movement was in the State of S?o Paulo, and the > second only in the city of S?o Paulo, there were some pages that were > not used for it. Consequently, the number of pages that were used in > the second movement is smaller than in the first. In addition, the > organization (in relation to centralization of the movements) started changing in the second movement. > That is, there were more pages connected to the main page on Facebook > (triangles). The third movement was again related to a scandal in the > State of S?o Paulo, and again, the number of pages on Facebook increased. > Since the fourth movement (from Rio de Janeiro) started after the > movements from S?o Paulo, they already started from a central page > (instead of fragmented pages from different schools in the first > movement), that served as a catalyst of information, and shared the > activities with the pages of each school. > > We will be back to discuss Collaborative agency and reply Andy's questions. > > Warm regards, > Fernando and Monica > > 2018-03-16 16:36 GMT-03:00 Peg Griffin : > > > I think Serena (whose graphic it is) now goes to a Society of > > Friends > high > > school. She has access to an enormously useful past for an activist > > to grow in! > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 2:36 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > schools > > > > Whoa, that is a great graphic, Peg! > > (like)!! :-) > > mike > > > > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Peg Griffin > wrote: > > > > > Here's a relevant link: http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/ > > > The Badass Teachers Association has existed for a few years now. > > > This is a blog with several posts by teachers who experienced the > > > March 14 Walkouts in the US. > > > The blog entries reflect a few different situations and > > > institutions that the Badass Teachers and their students > > > experience (note that the last blog entry extends from the Walkouts to Teacher Strikes and more). > > > > > > While I learned a lot from the account of the four movements in > > > Brazil and plan to learn more, here's a bit of a wondering that I have: > > > When I work with/for our young activists in the US, as time goes > > > by, I almost always find there's something said about the young > > > activists > > pasts. > > > They have participated in movements where peers further along in > > > some ways, and sometimes adults further along in some ways, collaborated. > > > The young activists did what they could when they could and took > > > in a "whole" event which in many ways they merely understood but > > > marching and chanting and drawing were really effective so they were engaged! > > > These young activists then externalized what they had taken in in > > > all the ways they are doing now ... And the teachers and the rest > > > of us > got > > further along, too! > > > The day before yesterday I was witnessing a Senate hearing. When > > > the hearing lies and evasions got terribly redundant, one of the > > > Moms Demand Action members seated next to me looked down to a live > > > stream on her phone of her daughter and classmates rallying > > > outside the White House. Other members remember the daughter > > > tagging along to lobbying and hearings and rallies and marches for > > > years and the live stream and hugs went around a couple of rows of > > > us. Eventually those White House protesting students marched from > > > the White House to Capitol Hill and the mom soon left to meet her > > > daughter's group outside. Inside, we were astonished at how much > > > we were getting away with without the powers that be warning we > > > would be tossed out. Maybe it's the times that are a changing or > > > maybe it was just that our slogan t-shirts, finger snaps, humphs > > > and yesses were mild in contrast to the Code Pink folks a few rows > > > away -- great costumes and liberty crowns and great signs. All > > > sorts of forbidden expressive delights in a hearing run by Grassley. > > > > > > By the way, Randi Weingarten who is president of the AFT (one of > > > the two prominent and somewhat staid teachers unions in the US) > > > shocked many in a recent e-mail when she easily referred to the > > > Badass Teachers Association as one of her co-leaders in the > > > coalition of forty organizations working on the April 20 National > > > Actions in the continuing move against gun violence. > > > (Adults are organizing the expansion of this anniversary of the > > > Columbine > > > Massacre,) > > > > > > Badass, hardcore, throwing shade -- those are some of my newly > > > nuanced vocabulary items that young activists have led me to learn > > > in the past year and a half. > > > > > > And I'm attaching an amazing piece of art work -- the artist is > > > also quite the author of the written word. > > > > > > Peg > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo > > > Jornet Gil > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:35 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the > > > hope to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with > > > the article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and > > > social > > mobilisation): > > > > > > Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities > > > and challenges that emerge when educators try to implement > > > makerspaces activities with young children (5-6 years old), now > > > that those have become fashionable and educators are trying to see > > > what's good in there. In the meeting, there were experienced > > > kindergarten teachers, science center organisers, artist researchers, "just plain postdocs" > > > and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about > > > children and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in > > > attempting to implement makerspaces-like activities with younger > > > children had to do with the failure of the adults to appreciate > > > and let the children own and make the space theirs, which we find > > > is the whole point of a maker space. We pointed out our failure to > > > see and listen how the kids see and listen, so as to help them > > > make. While many of us, adults, in those situations tend to attend > > > to the verb "to make" in the transitive, as in "she makes > > > some*thing*", thereby focusing on some end in mind that provides > > > with a model against which to exert correction, we forget that, in > > > most cases, the kids are in fact > > > *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in > > > the making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead > > > of supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means?in > > > praxis?we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it > > > no longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their > > > regular kindergarten spaces. > > > > > > Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth > > > is mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and > > > respectfully attend to where they are at, what *their* world and > > > space is, and what they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls > > > clothing in school is more regulated than GUNS in America" may not > > > sound as erudite and profound as more complex statements about the > > > relations between Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with capital letter). > > > But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is > > > in their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow > > > backward view of us adults who already know, but from the > > > prospective forward view of those who grow. And this is not to say > > > that they are right or that they are wrong; that would be, I think, missing the point. > > > Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do > > nothing," > > > are quite convincing to me. > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > ________________________________ > > > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > > > intransitive dimensions" > > > Free print available: > > > https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > on behalf of Glassman, Michael > > > > > > Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > Hi Harshad, > > > > > > Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure. If you want a hungry > > > person to not be hungry anymore you give them food. A student of > > > mind did a great study on homelessness. Basically the best thing > > > you can do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes. And if > > > you want people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away their guns. > > > > > > Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty > > > much made up over the last few centuries. > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > 15 March 2018. > > > > > > Dear friends, > > > > > > I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, > > > Mar 14, > > > 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on > > > it is concerned, I put some views here. > > > > > > We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on > > > school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public > > > place (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, > > > when Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing > > > civilized society on continent America was not a comfortable one. > > > The people passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to > > > day life during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a > > > responsible and wisdom full culture in the blood of people living > > > there. They fought for independence and emerged with a unity named > > > USA, they sustained with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed > > > through the severe recession of 1930 after World War I, and they > > > fought thousands of kilometres away from native place along with > > > allied nations in World War II. > > > These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of > > > the time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with them. > > > We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this > > > society in the history of this people though freedom to keep > > > gun/weapon was and > > has been a right. > > > > > > [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the > > protest. > > > I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.] > > > > > > After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over > > > other nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as > > > generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes > > > present youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could > > > study the history of the above path that was traveled by their > > > ancestors. There is much difference between reading a history and > > > making living in the same history. > > > > > > Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, ?*The only > > > limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of > > > today.*? It brought a new style and different culture with > > > comfortable life and inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new > > > generations. The emerging social constitution of society in USA > > > and its systems as well as institutions grew with a rapid progress and incessant changes. > > > Majority people believe that ?*dollars?* is the ultimate key > > > towards happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society > > > worked as if ?*science and technology?* has the entire competency > > > to settle any social problem. > > > > > > Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society > > > is stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are > > > Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and > > > Economics. Uneven growth in one or more pillars will destabilize > > > the society. Now a day, we are searching all the answers of social > > > issues from *science and technology*. We try to sort out every > > > problem through *dollars* only, and we do not know if it is sorted > > > out or postponed. Neither we honestly give adequate stress on > > > ethical value nor do we have uniform philosophy on which our > > > society might rest. Family system is all most paralyzed. Youth are > > > encouraged or instigated to be independent and self sufficient as > > > soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat them as freedom > > > to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact and every > > > street and corners are equipped with a net-work to misleading the youth. > > > > > > Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that > > > the subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, ?*Safety > > > never come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy > > > and balanced social system.*? > > > Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to > > > bring safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of > > > shootings shout for the grass root changes in social system with > > > balance uniform growth in the above said four pillars. It demands > > > for reintroducing an affectionate family system again and > > > fundamental education that dollars cannot always bring happiness > > > and peace but where the real happiness and peace lie. > > > > > > Harshad Dave > > > > > > Email: hhdave15@gmail.com > > > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Fernando and Monica, > > > > > > > > This is what is happening is the United States today, > > > > > > > > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students- > > > > from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest- > > > > gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html > > > > > > > > It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit > > > > this to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it > > > > will soon transform into another movement. But I think it goes > > > > to show how the work you have done, if only a beginning, is > > > > really important. I feel like we have missed this in U.S. > > > > academic circles. There is what is basically an idiotic article > > > > on fake news in the most recent Science, supposed to be our flagship. > > > > > > > > I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding > > > > what is going on and the role that what you call > > > > human-technology interaction is playing. > > > > > > > > I have a question for some activity theorists if they are > > > > interested in responding. In some ways what is going on does > > > > mirror an activity model, the multi-level reciprocal > > > > transformation (unless I am misunderstanding something). But as > > > > I said in an earlier message there is nobody coming in doing an > > > > intervention, the transformation itself is organic, more Dewey > > > > oriented I would say (I think maybe Friere also). Is there room for this in activity theory? > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity ; > > > > mike cole > > > > Cc: Lemos, Monica > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > Dear all, > > > > I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way > > > > some of you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention > > > > to reinvent the wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What > > > > I think it is important is that there is no "if" in human > > > > history, and we are where we are because we transform the places > > > > we live, as well as the tools we use. We can for sure ride > > > > horses in the cities, but the horses would sweat so much > > > > (considering the asphalt roads), that in a matter of > > > hours they would die. > > > > > > > > Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small > > > > part of what the movements organized by the students were.It is > > > > important to highlight, that despite people that were not in > > > > favor of protests (including some students!), it was the first > > > > time in Brazilian history that students (who were not supposed > > > > to interfere) interfered in a political decision. And they did > > > > so not only by using Facebook. As we mention in our paper, > > > > Facebook is one aspect of the protests, and we considered it as > > > > a mediational communicative tool. As I mentioned before in this > > > > answer, we as human beings use tools that are available, reshape > > > > them, and sometimes use them for a purpose that is > > > completely different from the original idea. > > > > I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a > > > > researcher because I am a secondary education teacher. We may > > > > have different points of view when you research something as an > > > > outsider, and when you participate (not as an ethnographer), but > > > > as a subject of the group. In my humble opinion, we are still > > > > trying to conceptualize (and > > > > stabilize) things that move faster than we can handle as > > > > scientists, or to compare contexts that cannot be compared. > > > > > > > > I am looking forward to your reactions. > > > > Best regards, > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________Fernando R. Cunha J?nior, PhD. > > > > > > > > http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com > > > > > > > > > > > > Em segunda-feira, 12 de mar?o de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike > > > > cole < mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu: > > > > > > > > Alfredo et al > > > > > > > > I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making > > > > the point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper. > > > > In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind > > > > (to use a metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time). > > > > HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the > > > > first time in my life. Call it 65 years. > > > > > > > > And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize > > > > such > > > matters. > > > > To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's > > > > description of the social sciences. In most American > > > > Universities, Psychology (cap > > > > P) is located in the social sciences. > > > > Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we > > > > approach it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists? > > > > Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human > > > > consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments > > > > in the laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on > > > > in my psychology department, AND as someone who can help > > > > understand the growth of social movements? This may also be a > > > > way to address and understanding of the overlap and variability > > > > in the ideas of Vygotsky and > > > Friere. > > > > > > > > Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated > > > > English we are spewing. I look forward to the discussion. > > > > > > > > Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to > > > > interpret it but I am doing a lousy job. > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks > > > > > Michael and Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant > > > > > connection to > > Parklands. > > > > > > > > > > There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a > > > > > couple of articles in MCA about how crises leading to > > > > > development most often result from quantitative increments > > > > > that lead to qualitative leaps such that new forms of > > > > > organization emerge from previous > ones. > > > > > So, David, I don't see why increments in the pace of > > > > > circulation (e.g., of > > > > > information) would not be expected to bring with them changes > > > > > in the organisation of the whole economy system. I would not > > > > > say that social media is just bringing a lot more of the same, > > > > > just as I would not a priori reject the possibility that > > > > > bringing a lot more of the same might not end up bringing new > > > > > qualitative forms of communicating. The observation that > > > > > "like" is intransitive in Facebook is interesting; but to me > > > > > it needs to be put in its larger context of use. And so, are > > > > > we analysing Facebook as a grammar closed up in itself, or as > > > > > one more > > > > chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation? > > > > > > > > > > I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be > > > > > amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and > > > > > often way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining > > > > > with much more complex verbal forms than Facebook's > > > > > intransitive "likes", only that the confrontations now seem to > > > > > be moving to family's dinner tables, quarrels among protesters > > > > > in public squares, or previously unheard of incarcerations for > > > > > publishing tweets and rap songs that critique the crown in a > > > > > supposedly modern democracy like > > Spain (e.g.: > > > > > http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_ > > > > > 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that > > > > > there are forms of organization that these technologies are > > > > > affording that may bring more positive changes, like the case > > > > > again in Spain of March 8th women's strike, the extent of > > > > > which no politician or journalist had anticipated and which > > > > > led the government to quickly adopt a much more > > > > > equity-friendly discourse than even the evening before > > > > > (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, > > > > > probably that one strike, or that one social media that may > > > > > have made it possible, won't change the system. But they seem > > > > > to incrementally add to > > > > something, don't they? > > > > > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > > > ________________________________ New article in *Design > > > > > Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and intransitive > > > > > dimensions" > > > > > Free print available: > > > > > https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > on behalf of Andy Blunden > > > > > > > > > > Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39 > > > > > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > > > That headline does not exist, but is it this: > > > > > > > > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social > > > > > -med > > > > > ia > > > > > .h > > > > > tml > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > > Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a > > > > > > story in today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors > > > > > > of > parkland." > > > > > > For some reason > > > > > it > > > > > > is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone > > > > > >out there in xmca-land can find it for us? I will check > > > > > >again in the morning to see if it appears. > > > > > > It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's > > > > > >article, and > > > > > to > > > > > > David's comment that " it is very hard for me to pinpoint > > > > > > any actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking > > > > > > which was made > > > > > possible by > > > > > > Facebook." The voices and forms of speaking used by the > > > > > > students was > > > > > not, > > > > > > so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no > > > > > > quotations of > > > > > any > > > > > > students speaking differently. I assumed that this article > > > > > > was about collective action. > > > > > > Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following > > > > > > parts of the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom > > > > > > user of Facebook. In particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3. > > > > > > Were the people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " > > > > > > Once students achieved the object of the activity?in the > > > > > > first case, to avoid the closure of the schools?they focused > > > > > > the protests on another > > > > object"). > > > > > > > > > > > > Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB > > > > > > connection form > > > M1? > > > > > Did > > > > > > you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few > > > > > > hundred > > > > > versus > > > > > > 10,000 reactions? > > > > > > > > > > > > Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider > > > > > > social > > issues? > > > > > There > > > > > > is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so > > > > > > it is difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing. > > > > > > Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use > > > > > > of the word "man" where the local practice might put > > > > > > "humankind" or some other gender inclusive term. > > > > > > > > > > > > David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself > > > > > > "working late." It got me to wondering how many people live > > > > > > in Seoul. A lot, > > > > it turns out. > > > > > > About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much > > > > > > faster all those people would be getting around on horses > > > > > > with all the horse plops > > > > > to > > > > > > clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the > > > > > > morning rush hour. :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > >> Hi David, > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn > > > > > >> any time > > > > soon. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type > > > > > >> of > > > > > technology. > > > > > >> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology > > > > > >> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new > > > > > >> type of human-technology interaction. I don't agree with > > > > > >> this > > phrasing. > > > > > >> I tend to think of > > > > > Facebook > > > > > >> more as an application of Internet technology - but either > > > > > >> way Facebook > > > > > is > > > > > >> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of > > > > > >> computer, radio and satellite communication an enormous > > > > > >> step forward in how humans communicate. I think so - it's > > > > > >> really extraordinary on a number of > > > > > levels > > > > > >> but that's really not the conversation for this article. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is > > > > > >> interesting and possibly important, especially when one > > > > > >> considers what is currently > > > > > going > > > > > >> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at > > > > > >> least from > > > > > what I > > > > > >> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important > > > > > >> for these students. Adults have been using it more for > > > > > >> larger organizational > > > > > events > > > > > >> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march). I have > > > > > >> read some articles on organizing on online forums (and > > > > > >> actually wrote a not very > > > > > good > > > > > >> one a few years back). Most of them are communications > > > > > >> based an don't > > > > > have > > > > > >> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this > > > > > >> article might > > > > > be > > > > > >> an important step forward. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory > > > > > >> might be a > > > > > good > > > > > >> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties > > > > > >> between the trialogical approach being developed by > > > > > >> Hakkareinan and Paavola and > > > > > what is > > > > > >> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their > > > > > >> own projects > > > > > and > > > > > >> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support > > > > > >> what they are doing which is in turn changing the quality > > > > > >> of their activities. I have > > > > > my > > > > > >> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct > > > > > >> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which > > > > > >> seem primary vehicles) are only part of it. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely > > > > > >> and should give us a lot to think about. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Michael > > > > > >> > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > > > > > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of > > > > > >> David Kellogg > > > > > >> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM > > > > > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > >> Brazilian > > > > > schools > > > > > >> > > > > > >> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant > > > > > >> technology already widely available in China and published > > > > > >> a single text using moveable > > > > > type > > > > > >> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social > > > > > >> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of > > > > > >> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other > > > > > >> places, Brazil, the Wars of > > > > > Religion in > > > > > >> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional > > > > > >> (political) State and ultimately those of a > > > > > >> multi-confessional > > > > > >> (psychological) state, In the twentieth century, Ford > > > > > >> similarly exapted extant technology, this time nearly two > > > > > >> millenia later than China, and mass-produced automobiles > > > > > using > > > > > >> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product > > > > > >> with interchangeable parts made by factories with > > > > > >> interchangeable > > > workers. > > > > > >> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, > > > > > >> and in Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it > > > > > >> would on horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of > > > > > >> technology that are actually semiogenic--and > > > > > others > > > > > >> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and > > > > > >> actually slow the movement of people and new ideas. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook" > > > > > >> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help > > > > > >> Harvard freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently > > > > > >> hot to > > > > > >> "like") is really one of the former technologies?.There are > > > > > >> very clear signs , beyond the obvious > > > > > ones > > > > > >> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the > > > > > >> latter > > > > > category, > > > > > >> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of > > > > > >> all, the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook > > > > > >> with reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the > > > > > >> clowns who run > > > > the "Five Stars" > > > > > >> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the > > > > > >> authors try but > > > > > do > > > > > >> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post > > > > > >> first and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall > > > > > >> Street and the use of social media by the four movements in > > > > > >> the article (including one actually > > > > > called > > > > > >> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me > > > > > >> to pinpoint > > > > > any > > > > > >> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which > > > > > >> was made > > > > > possible > > > > > >> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow > > > > > >> semiogenic power to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford > > > > > >> said, you can get a Model A in any color you like so long as it's black. > > > > > >> Facebook tells us the same thing, > > > > > but > > > > > >> makes the verb "like" intransitive. > > > > > >> > > > > > >> David Kellogg > > > > > >> Sangmyung University > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Recent Article in *Early Years* > > > > > >> > > > > > >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s > > > > > >> crises, and the child?s first interrogatives > > > > > >> > > > > >> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> Free e-print available at: > > > > > >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/ful > > > > > >> l > > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > > > >> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > > > > > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> > > > > > >> wrote: > > > > > >> > > > > > >>> Dear xmca'ers, > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for > > > > > >>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes > > > > > >>> upon us > > > > soon. > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and > > > > > >>> Fernando Rezende da Cunha J?nior, is about two topics that > > > > > >>> were thematised in the last ISCAR congress and that ought > > > > > >>> to be of much relevance to current and future CHAT-related research: > > > > > >>> Social media and social movements. In particular, the > > > > > >>> article examines how students use social media for the > > > > > >>> organization and development of 4 social > > > > movements in Brazil. > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The article is attached and is Free access during the > > > > > >>> discussion > > > > > period. > > > > > >>> It can be accessed free in the following link: > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017 > > > > > >>> .137 > > > > > >>> 98 > > > > > >>> 23 > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the > > > > > >>> discussion and they will be introducing themselves soon. I > > > > > >>> hope you will find the article interesting and please > > > > > >>> don't be shy to share anything you might have learned > > > > > >>> reading it, anything you might wonder about it or that you > > > > > >>> would like see discussed. Having authors engage in > > > > > >>> dialogue is a great opportunity that this community offers > > > > > >>> and that makes sense the most when many of you > > > > participate. Good reading! > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> ? > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> Alfredo Jornet > > > > > >>> > > > > > >>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: > > > > > >>> Transitive and intransitive dimensions" > > > > > >>> Free print available: > > > > > >>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > >>> > > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student > Faculty of Educational Sciences > Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning > http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm > > P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland > +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) > Skype: monicaflemos > -- Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student Faculty of Educational Sciences Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) Skype: monicaflemos From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 17 10:10:15 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:10:15 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools In-Reply-To: <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B07CF6@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> References: <1520721034406.59651@iped.uio.no> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF245E@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <0bdd10ce-7411-8083-533f-44fcfb50e928@marxists.org> <1520858083490.87795@iped.uio.no> <2017557051.756650.1520967771201@mail.yahoo.com> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF29C7@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953AF2B93@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> <1521156905718.23564@iped.uio.no> <001e01d3bd4e$f531b290$df9517b0$@att.net> <003601d3bd5e$1e105a40$5a310ec0$@att.net> <1521826827561.24749@iped.uio.no> <3B91542B0D4F274D871B38AA48E991F953B07CF6@CIO-KRC-D1MBX04.osuad.osu.edu> Message-ID: Interesting idea, Michael. So the medium is the messenger? And we should listen rather than kill? seriously mike On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 9:50 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > Hi Monica and Fernando, > > I have a question. Is there much playing of MUVE (multi-user virtual > reality ecologies) games (e.g. World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Everquest, > Call of Duty) in Brazil among adolescents. I ask this because much of what > you describe among the students, and what I see among the Parkland > students, and perhaps Black Lives Matter (although there hasn't been nearly > the media exploration of BLM, but I was just at a presentation that > discussed the social networking practices) is really reminiscent of the way > activities in these games are described to me. I am just getting as > graduate students the first generation that grew up with and are still > playing these games as part of their everyday activities. The abilities to > develop groups where different people take on different tasks at different > times as they attempt to reach their goals (raiding a village, taking over > an armory) seem to mirror much of what you describe. > > In the case of these games the objects are important but they're not > important. Meaning they are ephermal. They are in the moment. What > transfers from time to time is not the object, which might or might not > have relations to each other (and we can overemphasize those relationships > suggesting that there is an expertise in pursuing objects which would not > exist if they are ephermal) but the ability to engage in this type of > process. Something that is not generally taught in school. So what you > refer to as collaborative agency is taught within these MUVEs and then used > as we become aware and desire goals, receding when the goals are realized, > but there for the next goal. > > We keep trying to put our own stamps on these kids. That they are doing > this because they are aware of things that happened in the past, other > movements and such. I wonder if this is true. I wonder instead if it is the > result of a new type of education. An education many of them share, at > least in many part of the world, but somebody like me has never been part > of. You can learn a lot when you have to wait for the trolls to arrive so > your raiding party is complete and you can take over a village. > > Michael > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Monica Lemos > Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 9:06 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools > > Dear all, > > Thank you all for the comments concerning our paper. I know the article > *Facebook in Brazilian schools- Mobilizing to fight back* is not a hot > topic anymore, but let's get back to business and I will do my best to > contemplate all the co mments. > > As I opened my talk at ISCAR-Quebec, I used to jump outside school walls, > either because there was no teachers or because I didn't like some classes > and there was something more interesting to do outside. Differently from > those students in the 4M, who jumped inside the school walls saying "school > is ours" and getting organized despite various limitations to improve > school, from cleaning to trying different ways of organizing classes. > Is it a change in the wind? A breeze maybe. > > It was also very interesting to follow the discussions on the walkout > about schools and guns, together with the persnal histories that came out > with it. It reminded me of some colleagues, teachers at public schools, who > have to ask students for their "little toys" (read it as guns) that were > going to be returned by the end of the class. > Could you share the results of the anti-gun students' movements? > > Concerning the readings on Focault, we didn't have legs to bring him to > the article. We are aware, though, of how important it would be not only to > enrich the discussion on social movements, but also to improve the notion > of collaborative agency. > > Indeed, FB worked as a method of organizing students' own activties and > also as a way to call people's attention on what they were doing or when > they needed help. During the occupations they used to have two assemblies, > in each school, in the beginning and in th eend of the day, so they would > decide who was going to do what, and what would be the next steps > concernig the object of the movement. These were posted on the FB pages as > form of reporting decisions and activties. In such assemblies, students > would decide who was going to be in charge of cleaning, cooking or being > Public Relation (PR). This PR would be the adimin of the FB pages who was > going to decide what would be on the pages. Those functions could change if > they decided so during the meetings. > They also made lives of manifestations on the streets, when students from > different schools met, or called from help, for example in one event when > the police blocked two sides of a street making it impossible for students > to move. So, somehow it became a form of meaning making and as form of > tool-and-result with all the weight words and other multimodal resoures can > have, maybe generating rhe contradiction between agitation, propaganda and > desire to change. Ephemeral however, because,as I mentioned before, they > migrated to WhatsApp, and because the movements themselves faded way. For > this reason Fernando and I discussed the notion of social movements as a > form of wildfire activties, based on Engestr?m (2009), see the link below > http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid= > 208&doi=10.11648/j.hss.20170506.15 > . > > Andy, I have to say I trembled in your comments about the relation between > needs and object of the activties, but thank you David for solving the > puzzle. > > The notion of collaborative agency is still in progress, Fernando has > worked with it during his PhD and I have been working with it in other > works. I drafted an in depth discussion on the topic so we can move on with > the discussion. > > As one of the principles of CHAT, historicity plays a central role in > understanding problems and potentials in activities (Engestr?m, 1987; > 2001). By remembering what can be forgotten, appropriating from one?s own > memory means to understand why history is constituted in one way and not in > another, and why we become who we are, in which way it affects our > cultural, historical and social life in the present and in the future > (Souza, 2009:31). > > In historicity, traces of voices and lived experiences from the past > constitute how subjects act in the present for projecting and > transformation of activities in the future. Bearing historicity in mind, > Bakhtin/Voloshinov (1986), states that every word expresses the one in > relation to the other and that the utterances we produce, including our > creative work, carries other?s words with different levels of otherness and > different levels of ourselves. *The words of others manifest their own > expression and evaluation, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate* > (Bakhtin/Voloshinov, 1986 p.89). > > When different people get together, the traces of historicity and > otherness support encounters that can be creative and promote collaborative > agency. > Mer?on (2009), based on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, defines encounters > as a form of affect, the author asserts that in encounters we can affect > and be affected, increase or hinder our power of acting, which also > increases or hinders our power of thinking. > > When different parts come together in encounters, they their different > historical background and different kinds of expertise can clash and melt > together, which provides different kinds of meanings and contributions to > an activity. > > According to Miettinen (2010; 2013) the reasons for encounters in > activities mostly relate to the need to expand an expertise by finding a > new product, raw material, or market, or solving a specific problem, > therefore such encounters demand creativity so people?s power of acting and > thinking increase. Miettinen (2014) states that creative encounters can be > an attempt to transcend the limits of individualism, in addition, the > promotion of creative encounters plays a central role in enabling > collaborative agency, where participants engage toward a joint object of > activity. > > In the same line, Lemos (2015; 2017) understood collaborative agency as a > process through which participants become subjects of an activity by > collaboratively constructing and envisioning new possibilities for their > futures, consequently, transforming their own lives. > > Considering the movement school-community, Yamazumi (2009) poses that by > creating hybrid and symbiotic activities in which various involved partners > inside and outside the school collaborate and reciprocate with one another > enables overcoming crisis. *The distinguishing feature of activity theory > is a developmental theory concerned with qualitative transformations over > time in human practice. Its central tenet is how human beings can become > agents who can change themselves as they change their own institutions and > practices in a way that mobilizes their collaborative agency (intellects > and energies to act). Making changes in our own real life-worlds is at the > heart of activity theory *(Yamazumi, 2009:36). > > The transformative stance of agency is only possible when individuals or > group of individuals work in togetherness and not as conglomerate of people > together (van Oers & H?nikainen, 2010) as in the traffic jam or as in the > elevator. Collaborative agency generates transformative agency due to its > possibility to break away from a given frame of action and to take the > initiative to transform it which is enhanced by otherness constituted in > historicity. > Thus new tools, concepts and practices produced in creative encounters > carry future-oriented visions loaded with initiative and commitment by > partcipants (Virkkunen, 2006; Sannino, Engestr?m & Lemos, 2016). Yet, from > a transformative perspective, agency is related to the collective activity > of a group of individuals for the development of new possibilities and > transformations, which is only possible in collaboration (Haapasaari, > Engestr?m, Kerosuo, 2014; Engestr?m, Sannino, Virkkunen, 2014). > > Therefore, creative encounters in collaborative agency empower > participants to consider ways to transform oppressive situations rather > than seeing them as inexorable. By experiencing, creating, re-creating, and > integrating themselves into their contexts, rather than accepting imposed > measures, subjects transform their cultural and historical experiences > (Freire, 1967). Collaborative agency implies different participants? > histories, voices, actions, and reflections in and over activities to > master and transform their realities. > > > With best regards, > > Monica and Fernando > > > 2018-03-23 14:40 GMT-03:00 Alfredo Jornet Gil : > > > Thanks so much Monica and Fernando for being so generous to address > > everyone's questions, including this one about Figure 3. > > > > In that regard, I wonder about your reading of that "network > > structure" as relevant in re-organizing the students' agency. In your > > article, you write about the Rio de Janeiro group, > > > > "However, they changed the network structure to ensure more > > comprehensive communication among the groups" > > > > There is in this way of formulating an apparent assumption that there > > was an initial intention in organising the structure, having learned > > from the other previous movements/groups. You may (or may not) have > > empirical evidence that this organization was indeed an intentional > > one in terms of having considered prior experiences and having come to > > a decision about what may work best. I would be interested in knowing > > about that evidence, for I guess there is an interesting topic there > > concerning a tension between the inherently emergent character and > > impossible to predict implications of starting up online networks, on > > the one hand, and the use of those networks for some purposes and > > intentions on the other. What are your views on this tensions? And how > > would you say these existed in your project? Has anyone (apart from the > authors) thought about these? > > Alfredo Jornet > > ________________________________ > > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > > intransitive dimensions" > > Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of Monica Lemos > > > > Sent: 20 March 2018 14:04 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > schools > > > > Dear all, > > > > About Figure 3, our first challenge was on how to express the > > movements in activity systems, and soon we realized that it wouldn't > > be possible by using previous representations of an activity system, > > due to the expansion of the movements. > > So, we decided to place the object of the movement (big sphere in the > > center), and connect the participants (Facebook pages - small circles) > > to it. Since the first movement was in the State of S?o Paulo, and the > > second only in the city of S?o Paulo, there were some pages that were > > not used for it. Consequently, the number of pages that were used in > > the second movement is smaller than in the first. In addition, the > > organization (in relation to centralization of the movements) started > changing in the second movement. > > That is, there were more pages connected to the main page on Facebook > > (triangles). The third movement was again related to a scandal in the > > State of S?o Paulo, and again, the number of pages on Facebook increased. > > Since the fourth movement (from Rio de Janeiro) started after the > > movements from S?o Paulo, they already started from a central page > > (instead of fragmented pages from different schools in the first > > movement), that served as a catalyst of information, and shared the > > activities with the pages of each school. > > > > We will be back to discuss Collaborative agency and reply Andy's > questions. > > > > Warm regards, > > Fernando and Monica > > > > 2018-03-16 16:36 GMT-03:00 Peg Griffin : > > > > > I think Serena (whose graphic it is) now goes to a Society of > > > Friends > > high > > > school. She has access to an enormously useful past for an activist > > > to grow in! > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2018 2:36 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian > > schools > > > > > > Whoa, that is a great graphic, Peg! > > > (like)!! :-) > > > mike > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Peg Griffin > > wrote: > > > > > > > Here's a relevant link: http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/ > > > > The Badass Teachers Association has existed for a few years now. > > > > This is a blog with several posts by teachers who experienced the > > > > March 14 Walkouts in the US. > > > > The blog entries reflect a few different situations and > > > > institutions that the Badass Teachers and their students > > > > experience (note that the last blog entry extends from the Walkouts > to Teacher Strikes and more). > > > > > > > > While I learned a lot from the account of the four movements in > > > > Brazil and plan to learn more, here's a bit of a wondering that I > have: > > > > When I work with/for our young activists in the US, as time goes > > > > by, I almost always find there's something said about the young > > > > activists > > > pasts. > > > > They have participated in movements where peers further along in > > > > some ways, and sometimes adults further along in some ways, > collaborated. > > > > The young activists did what they could when they could and took > > > > in a "whole" event which in many ways they merely understood but > > > > marching and chanting and drawing were really effective so they were > engaged! > > > > These young activists then externalized what they had taken in in > > > > all the ways they are doing now ... And the teachers and the rest > > > > of us > > got > > > further along, too! > > > > The day before yesterday I was witnessing a Senate hearing. When > > > > the hearing lies and evasions got terribly redundant, one of the > > > > Moms Demand Action members seated next to me looked down to a live > > > > stream on her phone of her daughter and classmates rallying > > > > outside the White House. Other members remember the daughter > > > > tagging along to lobbying and hearings and rallies and marches for > > > > years and the live stream and hugs went around a couple of rows of > > > > us. Eventually those White House protesting students marched from > > > > the White House to Capitol Hill and the mom soon left to meet her > > > > daughter's group outside. Inside, we were astonished at how much > > > > we were getting away with without the powers that be warning we > > > > would be tossed out. Maybe it's the times that are a changing or > > > > maybe it was just that our slogan t-shirts, finger snaps, humphs > > > > and yesses were mild in contrast to the Code Pink folks a few rows > > > > away -- great costumes and liberty crowns and great signs. All > > > > sorts of forbidden expressive delights in a hearing run by Grassley. > > > > > > > > By the way, Randi Weingarten who is president of the AFT (one of > > > > the two prominent and somewhat staid teachers unions in the US) > > > > shocked many in a recent e-mail when she easily referred to the > > > > Badass Teachers Association as one of her co-leaders in the > > > > coalition of forty organizations working on the April 20 National > > > > Actions in the continuing move against gun violence. > > > > (Adults are organizing the expansion of this anniversary of the > > > > Columbine > > > > Massacre,) > > > > > > > > Badass, hardcore, throwing shade -- those are some of my newly > > > > nuanced vocabulary items that young activists have led me to learn > > > > in the past year and a half. > > > > > > > > And I'm attaching an amazing piece of art work -- the artist is > > > > also quite the author of the written word. > > > > > > > > Peg > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo > > > > Jornet Gil > > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 7:35 PM > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the > > > > hope to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with > > > > the article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and > > > > social > > > mobilisation): > > > > > > > > Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities > > > > and challenges that emerge when educators try to implement > > > > makerspaces activities with young children (5-6 years old), now > > > > that those have become fashionable and educators are trying to see > > > > what's good in there. In the meeting, there were experienced > > > > kindergarten teachers, science center organisers, artist > researchers, "just plain postdocs" > > > > and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about > > > > children and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in > > > > attempting to implement makerspaces-like activities with younger > > > > children had to do with the failure of the adults to appreciate > > > > and let the children own and make the space theirs, which we find > > > > is the whole point of a maker space. We pointed out our failure to > > > > see and listen how the kids see and listen, so as to help them > > > > make. While many of us, adults, in those situations tend to attend > > > > to the verb "to make" in the transitive, as in "she makes > > > > some*thing*", thereby focusing on some end in mind that provides > > > > with a model against which to exert correction, we forget that, in > > > > most cases, the kids are in fact > > > > *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in > > > > the making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead > > > > of supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means?in > > > > praxis?we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it > > > > no longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their > > > > regular kindergarten spaces. > > > > > > > > Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth > > > > is mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and > > > > respectfully attend to where they are at, what *their* world and > > > > space is, and what they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls > > > > clothing in school is more regulated than GUNS in America" may not > > > > sound as erudite and profound as more complex statements about the > > > > relations between Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with > capital letter). > > > > But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is > > > > in their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow > > > > backward view of us adults who already know, but from the > > > > prospective forward view of those who grow. And this is not to say > > > > that they are right or that they are wrong; that would be, I think, > missing the point. > > > > Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do > > > nothing," > > > > are quite convincing to me. > > > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > > ________________________________ > > > > New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and > > > > intransitive dimensions" > > > > Free print available: > > > > https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > on behalf of Glassman, Michael > > > > > > > > Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36 > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > Hi Harshad, > > > > > > > > Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure. If you want a hungry > > > > person to not be hungry anymore you give them food. A student of > > > > mind did a great study on homelessness. Basically the best thing > > > > you can do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes. And if > > > > you want people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away > their guns. > > > > > > > > Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty > > > > much made up over the last few centuries. > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave > > > > Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > 15 March 2018. > > > > > > > > Dear friends, > > > > > > > > I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, > > > > Mar 14, > > > > 2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on > > > > it is concerned, I put some views here. > > > > > > > > We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on > > > > school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public > > > > place (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, > > > > when Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing > > > > civilized society on continent America was not a comfortable one. > > > > The people passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to > > > > day life during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a > > > > responsible and wisdom full culture in the blood of people living > > > > there. They fought for independence and emerged with a unity named > > > > USA, they sustained with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed > > > > through the severe recession of 1930 after World War I, and they > > > > fought thousands of kilometres away from native place along with > > > > allied nations in World War II. > > > > These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of > > > > the time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with > them. > > > > We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this > > > > society in the history of this people though freedom to keep > > > > gun/weapon was and > > > has been a right. > > > > > > > > [NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the > > > protest. > > > > I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.] > > > > > > > > After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over > > > > other nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as > > > > generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes > > > > present youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could > > > > study the history of the above path that was traveled by their > > > > ancestors. There is much difference between reading a history and > > > > making living in the same history. > > > > > > > > Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, ?*The only > > > > limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of > > > > today.*? It brought a new style and different culture with > > > > comfortable life and inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new > > > > generations. The emerging social constitution of society in USA > > > > and its systems as well as institutions grew with a rapid progress > and incessant changes. > > > > Majority people believe that ?*dollars?* is the ultimate key > > > > towards happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society > > > > worked as if ?*science and technology?* has the entire competency > > > > to settle any social problem. > > > > > > > > Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society > > > > is stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are > > > > Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and > > > > Economics. Uneven growth in one or more pillars will destabilize > > > > the society. Now a day, we are searching all the answers of social > > > > issues from *science and technology*. We try to sort out every > > > > problem through *dollars* only, and we do not know if it is sorted > > > > out or postponed. Neither we honestly give adequate stress on > > > > ethical value nor do we have uniform philosophy on which our > > > > society might rest. Family system is all most paralyzed. Youth are > > > > encouraged or instigated to be independent and self sufficient as > > > > soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat them as freedom > > > > to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact and every > > > > street and corners are equipped with a net-work to misleading the > youth. > > > > > > > > Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that > > > > the subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, ?*Safety > > > > never come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy > > > > and balanced social system.*? > > > > Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to > > > > bring safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of > > > > shootings shout for the grass root changes in social system with > > > > balance uniform growth in the above said four pillars. It demands > > > > for reintroducing an affectionate family system again and > > > > fundamental education that dollars cannot always bring happiness > > > > and peace but where the real happiness and peace lie. > > > > > > > > Harshad Dave > > > > > > > > Email: hhdave15@gmail.com > > > > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > Fernando and Monica, > > > > > > > > > > This is what is happening is the United States today, > > > > > > > > > > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students- > > > > > from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest- > > > > > gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html > > > > > > > > > > It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit > > > > > this to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it > > > > > will soon transform into another movement. But I think it goes > > > > > to show how the work you have done, if only a beginning, is > > > > > really important. I feel like we have missed this in U.S. > > > > > academic circles. There is what is basically an idiotic article > > > > > on fake news in the most recent Science, supposed to be our > flagship. > > > > > > > > > > I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding > > > > > what is going on and the role that what you call > > > > > human-technology interaction is playing. > > > > > > > > > > I have a question for some activity theorists if they are > > > > > interested in responding. In some ways what is going on does > > > > > mirror an activity model, the multi-level reciprocal > > > > > transformation (unless I am misunderstanding something). But as > > > > > I said in an earlier message there is nobody coming in doing an > > > > > intervention, the transformation itself is organic, more Dewey > > > > > oriented I would say (I think maybe Friere also). Is there room > for this in activity theory? > > > > > > > > > > Michael > > > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha > > > > > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM > > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity ; > > > > > mike cole > > > > > Cc: Lemos, Monica > > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > > > Dear all, > > > > > I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way > > > > > some of you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention > > > > > to reinvent the wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What > > > > > I think it is important is that there is no "if" in human > > > > > history, and we are where we are because we transform the places > > > > > we live, as well as the tools we use. We can for sure ride > > > > > horses in the cities, but the horses would sweat so much > > > > > (considering the asphalt roads), that in a matter of > > > > hours they would die. > > > > > > > > > > Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small > > > > > part of what the movements organized by the students were.It is > > > > > important to highlight, that despite people that were not in > > > > > favor of protests (including some students!), it was the first > > > > > time in Brazilian history that students (who were not supposed > > > > > to interfere) interfered in a political decision. And they did > > > > > so not only by using Facebook. As we mention in our paper, > > > > > Facebook is one aspect of the protests, and we considered it as > > > > > a mediational communicative tool. As I mentioned before in this > > > > > answer, we as human beings use tools that are available, reshape > > > > > them, and sometimes use them for a purpose that is > > > > completely different from the original idea. > > > > > I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a > > > > > researcher because I am a secondary education teacher. We may > > > > > have different points of view when you research something as an > > > > > outsider, and when you participate (not as an ethnographer), but > > > > > as a subject of the group. In my humble opinion, we are still > > > > > trying to conceptualize (and > > > > > stabilize) things that move faster than we can handle as > > > > > scientists, or to compare contexts that cannot be compared. > > > > > > > > > > I am looking forward to your reactions. > > > > > Best regards, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > __________________________Fernando R. Cunha J?nior, PhD. > > > > > > > > > > http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Em segunda-feira, 12 de mar?o de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike > > > > > cole < mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu: > > > > > > > > > > Alfredo et al > > > > > > > > > > I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making > > > > > the point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper. > > > > > In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind > > > > > (to use a metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time). > > > > > HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the > > > > > first time in my life. Call it 65 years. > > > > > > > > > > And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize > > > > > such > > > > matters. > > > > > To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's > > > > > description of the social sciences. In most American > > > > > Universities, Psychology (cap > > > > > P) is located in the social sciences. > > > > > Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we > > > > > approach it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists? > > > > > Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human > > > > > consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments > > > > > in the laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on > > > > > in my psychology department, AND as someone who can help > > > > > understand the growth of social movements? This may also be a > > > > > way to address and understanding of the overlap and variability > > > > > in the ideas of Vygotsky and > > > > Friere. > > > > > > > > > > Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated > > > > > English we are spewing. I look forward to the discussion. > > > > > > > > > > Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to > > > > > interpret it but I am doing a lousy job. > > > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks > > > > > > Michael and Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant > > > > > > connection to > > > Parklands. > > > > > > > > > > > > There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a > > > > > > couple of articles in MCA about how crises leading to > > > > > > development most often result from quantitative increments > > > > > > that lead to qualitative leaps such that new forms of > > > > > > organization emerge from previous > > ones. > > > > > > So, David, I don't see why increments in the pace of > > > > > > circulation (e.g., of > > > > > > information) would not be expected to bring with them changes > > > > > > in the organisation of the whole economy system. I would not > > > > > > say that social media is just bringing a lot more of the same, > > > > > > just as I would not a priori reject the possibility that > > > > > > bringing a lot more of the same might not end up bringing new > > > > > > qualitative forms of communicating. The observation that > > > > > > "like" is intransitive in Facebook is interesting; but to me > > > > > > it needs to be put in its larger context of use. And so, are > > > > > > we analysing Facebook as a grammar closed up in itself, or as > > > > > > one more > > > > > chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation? > > > > > > > > > > > > I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be > > > > > > amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and > > > > > > often way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining > > > > > > with much more complex verbal forms than Facebook's > > > > > > intransitive "likes", only that the confrontations now seem to > > > > > > be moving to family's dinner tables, quarrels among protesters > > > > > > in public squares, or previously unheard of incarcerations for > > > > > > publishing tweets and rap songs that critique the crown in a > > > > > > supposedly modern democracy like > > > Spain (e.g.: > > > > > > http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_ > > > > > > 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that > > > > > > there are forms of organization that these technologies are > > > > > > affording that may bring more positive changes, like the case > > > > > > again in Spain of March 8th women's strike, the extent of > > > > > > which no politician or journalist had anticipated and which > > > > > > led the government to quickly adopt a much more > > > > > > equity-friendly discourse than even the evening before > > > > > > (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, > > > > > > probably that one strike, or that one social media that may > > > > > > have made it possible, won't change the system. But they seem > > > > > > to incrementally add to > > > > > something, don't they? > > > > > > > > > > > > Alfredo Jornet > > > > > > ________________________________ New article in *Design > > > > > > Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and intransitive > > > > > > dimensions" > > > > > > Free print available: > > > > > > https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________ > > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > > on behalf of Andy Blunden > > > > > > > > > > > > Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39 > > > > > > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > > Brazilian schools > > > > > > > > > > > > That headline does not exist, but is it this: > > > > > > > > > > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social > > > > > > -med > > > > > > ia > > > > > > .h > > > > > > tml > > > > > > > > > > > > Andy > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > > > Andy Blunden > > > > > > ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > > > On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > > > > Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a > > > > > > > story in today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors > > > > > > > of > > parkland." > > > > > > > For some reason > > > > > > it > > > > > > > is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone > > > > > > >out there in xmca-land can find it for us? I will check > > > > > > >again in the morning to see if it appears. > > > > > > > It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's > > > > > > >article, and > > > > > > to > > > > > > > David's comment that " it is very hard for me to pinpoint > > > > > > > any actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking > > > > > > > which was made > > > > > > possible by > > > > > > > Facebook." The voices and forms of speaking used by the > > > > > > > students was > > > > > > not, > > > > > > > so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no > > > > > > > quotations of > > > > > > any > > > > > > > students speaking differently. I assumed that this article > > > > > > > was about collective action. > > > > > > > Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following > > > > > > > parts of the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom > > > > > > > user of Facebook. In particular, I had difficulty > understanding Figure 3. > > > > > > > Were the people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( > " > > > > > > > Once students achieved the object of the activity?in the > > > > > > > first case, to avoid the closure of the schools?they focused > > > > > > > the protests on another > > > > > object"). > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB > > > > > > > connection form > > > > M1? > > > > > > Did > > > > > > > you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few > > > > > > > hundred > > > > > > versus > > > > > > > 10,000 reactions? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider > > > > > > > social > > > issues? > > > > > > There > > > > > > > is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so > > > > > > > it is difficult to know from what part of the world you are > writing. > > > > > > > Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use > > > > > > > of the word "man" where the local practice might put > > > > > > > "humankind" or some other gender inclusive term. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself > > > > > > > "working late." It got me to wondering how many people live > > > > > > > in Seoul. A lot, > > > > > it turns out. > > > > > > > About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much > > > > > > > faster all those people would be getting around on horses > > > > > > > with all the horse plops > > > > > > to > > > > > > > clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the > > > > > > > morning rush hour. :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael > > > > > > > > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> Hi David, > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn > > > > > > >> any time > > > > > soon. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type > > > > > > >> of > > > > > > technology. > > > > > > >> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology > > > > > > >> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new > > > > > > >> type of human-technology interaction. I don't agree with > > > > > > >> this > > > phrasing. > > > > > > >> I tend to think of > > > > > > Facebook > > > > > > >> more as an application of Internet technology - but either > > > > > > >> way Facebook > > > > > > is > > > > > > >> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of > > > > > > >> computer, radio and satellite communication an enormous > > > > > > >> step forward in how humans communicate. I think so - it's > > > > > > >> really extraordinary on a number of > > > > > > levels > > > > > > >> but that's really not the conversation for this article. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is > > > > > > >> interesting and possibly important, especially when one > > > > > > >> considers what is currently > > > > > > going > > > > > > >> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at > > > > > > >> least from > > > > > > what I > > > > > > >> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important > > > > > > >> for these students. Adults have been using it more for > > > > > > >> larger organizational > > > > > > events > > > > > > >> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march). I have > > > > > > >> read some articles on organizing on online forums (and > > > > > > >> actually wrote a not very > > > > > > good > > > > > > >> one a few years back). Most of them are communications > > > > > > >> based an don't > > > > > > have > > > > > > >> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this > > > > > > >> article might > > > > > > be > > > > > > >> an important step forward. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory > > > > > > >> might be a > > > > > > good > > > > > > >> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties > > > > > > >> between the trialogical approach being developed by > > > > > > >> Hakkareinan and Paavola and > > > > > > what is > > > > > > >> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their > > > > > > >> own projects > > > > > > and > > > > > > >> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support > > > > > > >> what they are doing which is in turn changing the quality > > > > > > >> of their activities. I have > > > > > > my > > > > > > >> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct > > > > > > >> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which > > > > > > >> seem primary vehicles) are only part of it. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely > > > > > > >> and should give us a lot to think about. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> Michael > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > > > > > > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > > > >> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of > > > > > > >> David Kellogg > > > > > > >> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM > > > > > > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in > > > > > > >> Brazilian > > > > > > schools > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant > > > > > > >> technology already widely available in China and published > > > > > > >> a single text using moveable > > > > > > type > > > > > > >> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social > > > > > > >> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of > > > > > > >> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other > > > > > > >> places, Brazil, the Wars of > > > > > > Religion in > > > > > > >> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional > > > > > > >> (political) State and ultimately those of a > > > > > > >> multi-confessional > > > > > > >> (psychological) state, In the twentieth century, Ford > > > > > > >> similarly exapted extant technology, this time nearly two > > > > > > >> millenia later than China, and mass-produced automobiles > > > > > > using > > > > > > >> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product > > > > > > >> with interchangeable parts made by factories with > > > > > > >> interchangeable > > > > workers. > > > > > > >> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, > > > > > > >> and in Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it > > > > > > >> would on horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of > > > > > > >> technology that are actually semiogenic--and > > > > > > others > > > > > > >> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and > > > > > > >> actually slow the movement of people and new ideas. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook" > > > > > > >> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help > > > > > > >> Harvard freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently > > > > > > >> hot to > > > > > > >> "like") is really one of the former technologies?.There are > > > > > > >> very clear signs , beyond the obvious > > > > > > ones > > > > > > >> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the > > > > > > >> latter > > > > > > category, > > > > > > >> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of > > > > > > >> all, the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook > > > > > > >> with reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the > > > > > > >> clowns who run > > > > > the "Five Stars" > > > > > > >> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the > > > > > > >> authors try but > > > > > > do > > > > > > >> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post > > > > > > >> first and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall > > > > > > >> Street and the use of social media by the four movements in > > > > > > >> the article (including one actually > > > > > > called > > > > > > >> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me > > > > > > >> to pinpoint > > > > > > any > > > > > > >> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which > > > > > > >> was made > > > > > > possible > > > > > > >> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow > > > > > > >> semiogenic power to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford > > > > > > >> said, you can get a Model A in any color you like so long as > it's black. > > > > > > >> Facebook tells us the same thing, > > > > > > but > > > > > > >> makes the verb "like" intransitive. > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> David Kellogg > > > > > > >> Sangmyung University > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> Recent Article in *Early Years* > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s > > > > > > >> crises, and the child?s first interrogatives > > > > > > >> > > > > > >> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> Free e-print available at: > > > > > > >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/ful > > > > > > >> l > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < > > > > > > a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> > > > > > > >> wrote: > > > > > > >> > > > > > > >>> Dear xmca'ers, > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for > > > > > > >>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes > > > > > > >>> upon us > > > > > soon. > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and > > > > > > >>> Fernando Rezende da Cunha J?nior, is about two topics that > > > > > > >>> were thematised in the last ISCAR congress and that ought > > > > > > >>> to be of much relevance to current and future CHAT-related > research: > > > > > > >>> Social media and social movements. In particular, the > > > > > > >>> article examines how students use social media for the > > > > > > >>> organization and development of 4 social > > > > > movements in Brazil. > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> The article is attached and is Free access during the > > > > > > >>> discussion > > > > > > period. > > > > > > >>> It can be accessed free in the following link: > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017 > > > > > > >>> .137 > > > > > > >>> 98 > > > > > > >>> 23 > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the > > > > > > >>> discussion and they will be introducing themselves soon. I > > > > > > >>> hope you will find the article interesting and please > > > > > > >>> don't be shy to share anything you might have learned > > > > > > >>> reading it, anything you might wonder about it or that you > > > > > > >>> would like see discussed. Having authors engage in > > > > > > >>> dialogue is a great opportunity that this community offers > > > > > > >>> and that makes sense the most when many of you > > > > > participate. Good reading! > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> ? > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> Alfredo Jornet > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: > > > > > > >>> Transitive and intransitive dimensions" > > > > > > >>> Free print available: > > > > > > >>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student > > Faculty of Educational Sciences > > Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning > > http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm > > > > P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland > > +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) > > Skype: monicaflemos > > > > > > -- > Monica F. Lemos - PhD Student > Faculty of Educational Sciences > Center for Research on Activity, Development and Learning > http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/doctoral_students_2012.htm > > P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki- Finland > +55 11 98162-9482 (whatsapp) > Skype: monicaflemos > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 17 10:38:27 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:38:27 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In this case I am acting in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to create either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of the complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a common interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I do not think it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics there, and not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are still likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining our way through time. But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain essays that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, would be welcome. To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned up, discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for us a new discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins with the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a way that will allow us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including the common study materials collected. Bruce explains it this way. Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue color of a live linke* I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists you on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and MAKH I am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for starting discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check out the paper to see if you are interested. Mike Cole -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: gwells.lsv.halliday.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 4223360 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180417/59e71183/attachment-0001.pdf From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Apr 17 13:14:46 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 20:14:46 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> The link for subscribing to the MAKH discussion/symposium in Mike's e-mail is broken in two lines. In case this creates difficulties to use it, I copy it below in one line : https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole Sent: 17 April 2018 19:38 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday Dear Colleagues, Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In this case I am acting in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to create either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of the complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a common interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I do not think it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics there, and not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are still likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining our way through time. But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain essays that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, would be welcome. To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned up, discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for us a new discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins with the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a way that will allow us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including the common study materials collected. Bruce explains it this way. Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue color of a live linke* I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists you on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and MAKH I am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for starting discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check out the paper to see if you are interested. Mike Cole From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 17 14:43:35 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 14:43:35 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday In-Reply-To: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> References: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Thanks for re-posting, Alfredo. Sorry about the broken link. I look forward to an educational experience! mike On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > The link for subscribing to the MAKH discussion/symposium in Mike's e-mail > is broken in two lines. In case this creates difficulties to use it, I copy > it below in one line : > > https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l > > Alfredo > ________________________________________ > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of mike cole > Sent: 17 April 2018 19:38 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to > organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In this > case I am acting > > in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to create > either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of the > complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the > personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a common > interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. > > > > The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I do not > think > > it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics there, and > not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are still > likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining our > way through time. > > But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain > essays > > that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, would be > welcome. > > > > To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned up, > discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for us a > new > > discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins with > the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a way > that will allow > > us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including the > common study materials collected. > > > > Bruce explains it this way. > > > > Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm > an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. > > Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. > > > > *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue > color > of a live linke* > > > > I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists you > > on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. > > > > As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and MAKH I > am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for starting > discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check out > the paper to see if you are interested. > > > > Mike Cole > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Tue Apr 17 17:43:16 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 09:43:16 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday In-Reply-To: References: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: I have a slightly different problem, Mike (and of course Brian Jones, the guardian angel of xmca, hovering silently in the background). I figured out the problem just as Alfredo did and reached the place to register. I even got an email asking me to confirm my submission. But it doesn't recognize the administrative string that I send to confirm, either by email or at the site. Anyway, voila, here's what I wanted to say (because I am teaching it in phonology class today, as review for the midterm). In phonetics, "complementary distribution" means that the two sounds are NOT interchangeable: for example, you always find the "dark", syllabic consonant /l/ at the end of the word "little" and you never find it at the beginning. The distribution of "dark l" and "light l" is called complementary, because it's like Clark Kent and Superman, they are one and the same entity and as a result you never find them in the same environment, You always find the "light" nonsyllabic consonant /l/ at the beginning of the word "little" and you never find it at the end. So one way to talk about the complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday is to say that they have basically the same identity (a Marxist theoretical background, a monist, holistic methodology, a cultural historical approach, a semantic, "already socialized" view of consciousness but "personality as individualized brain". But like some closeted straight guy who starts frequenting gay bars, they are found in different environments, viz. the study of thinking on the one hand and the study of speech on the other. This is, actually, what Professor Wells proposes in his article. But another way to talk about this complementarity is messier. You see, in phonetics, "overlapping distribution" means that two sounds ARE interchangeable, but if you DO interchange them, you get a change in meaning. So for example if you interchange the /t/ sound and the /l/ sound in the word 'little" you come up with "tillet", which isn't exactly a word, but sounds vaguely like a name, or maybe a mispronunciation of "tilt" or "tilled" or (if you are Korean or Japanese or Chinese) "turret". These are differences in meaning. The distribution of /t/ and /l/ is called overlapping because you DO find the two sounds in the same environment--at the beginning of a syllable ("Ted" and "led"), in the middle ("betting" and "belling" and at the end ("sit" and "sill"). So another way to talk about LSV and MAKH is to say that when you change your point of view, you do get a change in meaning. For example, LSV treats the development of child language as essentially crisis-ridden. MAKH never speaks of crises, although his way of modeling language as systems might imply them. MAKH on the other hand treats context as something that is language-generated, while LSV never talks like this, although his way of modeling the social situation of development as a relationship between the child and the environment might be considered compatible with this view--but not exactly complementary. This latter way seems more likely to me. I think one of the things that LSV and MAKH have in common is that they would both reject the idea that the study of consciousness and the study of language belong to entirely different sciences, and they would equally reject any attempt to divide that science from its practical applications. For that very reason, they both have a rather "fuzzy" sense of what meaning is--they both think that meaning kind of penumbral--bright and illuminating in the middle but infinitely extendable and therefore not definite around the edges. David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:43 AM, mike cole wrote: > Thanks for re-posting, Alfredo. > Sorry about the broken link. > > I look forward to an educational experience! > > mike > > On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > > The link for subscribing to the MAKH discussion/symposium in Mike's > e-mail > > is broken in two lines. In case this creates difficulties to use it, I > copy > > it below in one line : > > > > https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l > > > > Alfredo > > ________________________________________ > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > on behalf of mike cole > > Sent: 17 April 2018 19:38 > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday > > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > > > > > Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to > > organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In this > > case I am acting > > > > in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to > create > > either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of the > > complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the > > personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a > common > > interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. > > > > > > > > The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I do > not > > think > > > > it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics there, > and > > not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are > still > > likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining our > > way through time. > > > > But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain > > essays > > > > that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, would be > > welcome. > > > > > > > > To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned up, > > discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for us > a > > new > > > > discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins with > > the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a way > > that will allow > > > > us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including > the > > common study materials collected. > > > > > > > > Bruce explains it this way. > > > > > > > > Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm > > an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. > > > > Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. > > > > > > > > *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue > > color > > of a live linke* > > > > > > > > I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists you > > > > on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. > > > > > > > > As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and > MAKH I > > am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for > starting > > discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check out > > the paper to see if you are interested. > > > > > > > > Mike Cole > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 17 18:10:29 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 01:10:29 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday In-Reply-To: References: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: We?ll get right on it David . Thanks for the warning. As usual I fail to understanding of the words I used. Very useful for a first post in the discussion forum. Let?s see what mistakes Gordon is led into in his deployment of the term But first let?s get it up and running! This was supposed to be the easy part! Mike On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 5:45 PM David Kellogg wrote: > I have a slightly different problem, Mike (and of course Brian Jones, the > guardian angel of xmca, hovering silently in the background). I figured out > the problem just as Alfredo did and reached the place to register. I even > got an email asking me to confirm my submission. But it doesn't recognize > the administrative string that I send to confirm, either by email or at the > site. > > Anyway, voila, here's what I wanted to say (because I am teaching it in > phonology class today, as review for the midterm). In phonetics, > "complementary distribution" means that the two sounds are NOT > interchangeable: for example, you always find the "dark", syllabic > consonant /l/ at the end of the word "little" and you never find it at the > beginning. The distribution of "dark l" and "light l" is called > complementary, because it's like Clark Kent and Superman, they are one and > the same entity and as a result you never find them in the same > environment, You always find the "light" nonsyllabic consonant /l/ at the > beginning of the word "little" and you never find it at the end. > > So one way to talk about the complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday is to > say that they have basically the same identity (a Marxist theoretical > background, a monist, holistic methodology, a cultural historical approach, > a semantic, "already socialized" view of consciousness but "personality as > individualized brain". But like some closeted straight guy who starts > frequenting gay bars, they are found in different environments, viz. the > study of thinking on the one hand and the study of speech on the other. > This is, actually, what Professor Wells proposes in his article. > > But another way to talk about this complementarity is messier. You see, in > phonetics, "overlapping distribution" means that two sounds ARE > interchangeable, but if you DO interchange them, you get a change in > meaning. So for example if you interchange the /t/ sound and the /l/ sound > in the word 'little" you come up with "tillet", which isn't exactly a word, > but sounds vaguely like a name, or maybe a mispronunciation of "tilt" or > "tilled" or (if you are Korean or Japanese or Chinese) "turret". These are > differences in meaning. The distribution of /t/ and /l/ is called > overlapping because you DO find the two sounds in the same environment--at > the beginning of a syllable ("Ted" and "led"), in the middle ("betting" and > "belling" and at the end ("sit" and "sill"). > > So another way to talk about LSV and MAKH is to say that when you change > your point of view, you do get a change in meaning. For example, LSV treats > the development of child language as essentially crisis-ridden. MAKH never > speaks of crises, although his way of modeling language as systems might > imply them. MAKH on the other hand treats context as something that is > language-generated, while LSV never talks like this, although his way of > modeling the social situation of development as a relationship between the > child and the environment might be considered compatible with this > view--but not exactly complementary. > > This latter way seems more likely to me. I think one of the things that LSV > and MAKH have in common is that they would both reject the idea that the > study of consciousness and the study of language belong to entirely > different sciences, and they would equally reject any attempt to divide > that science from its practical applications. For that very reason, they > both have a rather "fuzzy" sense of what meaning is--they both think that > meaning kind of penumbral--bright and illuminating in the middle but > infinitely extendable and therefore not definite around the edges. > > David Kellogg > Sangmyung University > > Recent Article in *Early Years* > > The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the > child?s first interrogatives > > > Free e-print available at: > https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full > > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:43 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Thanks for re-posting, Alfredo. > > Sorry about the broken link. > > > > I look forward to an educational experience! > > > > mike > > > > On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil > > > wrote: > > > > > The link for subscribing to the MAKH discussion/symposium in Mike's > > e-mail > > > is broken in two lines. In case this creates difficulties to use it, I > > copy > > > it below in one line : > > > > > > https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l > > > > > > Alfredo > > > ________________________________________ > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > > > on behalf of mike cole > > > Sent: 17 April 2018 19:38 > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday > > > > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > > > > > > > > > Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to > > > organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In > this > > > case I am acting > > > > > > in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to > > create > > > either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of the > > > complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the > > > personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a > > common > > > interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. > > > > > > > > > > > > The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I do > > not > > > think > > > > > > it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics there, > > and > > > not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are > > still > > > likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining > our > > > way through time. > > > > > > But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain > > > essays > > > > > > that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, would > be > > > welcome. > > > > > > > > > > > > To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned > up, > > > discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for > us > > a > > > new > > > > > > discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins > with > > > the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a > way > > > that will allow > > > > > > us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including > > the > > > common study materials collected. > > > > > > > > > > > > Bruce explains it this way. > > > > > > > > > > > > Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm > > > an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. > > > > > > Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. > > > > > > > > > > > > *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue > > > color > > > of a live linke* > > > > > > > > > > > > I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists > you > > > > > > on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. > > > > > > > > > > > > As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and > > MAKH I > > > am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for > > starting > > > discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check > out > > > the paper to see if you are interested. > > > > > > > > > > > > Mike Cole > > > > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 17 18:13:42 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 01:13:42 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday In-Reply-To: References: <1523996086410.17837@iped.uio.no> Message-ID: Whoa, that came out in iPhone-speak! How appropriate:-) Mike On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 6:10 PM mike cole wrote: > We?ll get right on it David . Thanks for the warning. > > As usual I fail to understanding of the words I used. > > Very useful for a first post in the discussion forum. Let?s see what > mistakes Gordon is led into in his deployment of the term > > But first let?s get it up and running! This was supposed to be the easy > part! > > Mike > > On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 5:45 PM David Kellogg > wrote: > >> I have a slightly different problem, Mike (and of course Brian Jones, the >> guardian angel of xmca, hovering silently in the background). I figured >> out >> the problem just as Alfredo did and reached the place to register. I even >> got an email asking me to confirm my submission. But it doesn't recognize >> the administrative string that I send to confirm, either by email or at >> the >> site. >> >> Anyway, voila, here's what I wanted to say (because I am teaching it in >> phonology class today, as review for the midterm). In phonetics, >> "complementary distribution" means that the two sounds are NOT >> interchangeable: for example, you always find the "dark", syllabic >> consonant /l/ at the end of the word "little" and you never find it at the >> beginning. The distribution of "dark l" and "light l" is called >> complementary, because it's like Clark Kent and Superman, they are one and >> the same entity and as a result you never find them in the same >> environment, You always find the "light" nonsyllabic consonant /l/ at the >> beginning of the word "little" and you never find it at the end. >> >> So one way to talk about the complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday is >> to >> say that they have basically the same identity (a Marxist theoretical >> background, a monist, holistic methodology, a cultural historical >> approach, >> a semantic, "already socialized" view of consciousness but "personality as >> individualized brain". But like some closeted straight guy who starts >> frequenting gay bars, they are found in different environments, viz. the >> study of thinking on the one hand and the study of speech on the other. >> This is, actually, what Professor Wells proposes in his article. >> >> But another way to talk about this complementarity is messier. You see, in >> phonetics, "overlapping distribution" means that two sounds ARE >> interchangeable, but if you DO interchange them, you get a change in >> meaning. So for example if you interchange the /t/ sound and the /l/ sound >> in the word 'little" you come up with "tillet", which isn't exactly a >> word, >> but sounds vaguely like a name, or maybe a mispronunciation of "tilt" or >> "tilled" or (if you are Korean or Japanese or Chinese) "turret". These are >> differences in meaning. The distribution of /t/ and /l/ is called >> overlapping because you DO find the two sounds in the same environment--at >> the beginning of a syllable ("Ted" and "led"), in the middle ("betting" >> and >> "belling" and at the end ("sit" and "sill"). >> >> So another way to talk about LSV and MAKH is to say that when you change >> your point of view, you do get a change in meaning. For example, LSV >> treats >> the development of child language as essentially crisis-ridden. MAKH never >> speaks of crises, although his way of modeling language as systems might >> imply them. MAKH on the other hand treats context as something that is >> language-generated, while LSV never talks like this, although his way of >> modeling the social situation of development as a relationship between the >> child and the environment might be considered compatible with this >> view--but not exactly complementary. >> >> This latter way seems more likely to me. I think one of the things that >> LSV >> and MAKH have in common is that they would both reject the idea that the >> study of consciousness and the study of language belong to entirely >> different sciences, and they would equally reject any attempt to divide >> that science from its practical applications. For that very reason, they >> both have a rather "fuzzy" sense of what meaning is--they both think that >> meaning kind of penumbral--bright and illuminating in the middle but >> infinitely extendable and therefore not definite around the edges. >> >> David Kellogg >> Sangmyung University >> >> Recent Article in *Early Years* >> >> The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the >> child?s first interrogatives >> >> >> Free e-print available at: >> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full >> >> >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:43 AM, mike cole wrote: >> >> > Thanks for re-posting, Alfredo. >> > Sorry about the broken link. >> > >> > I look forward to an educational experience! >> > >> > mike >> > >> > On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 1:14 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil < >> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> >> > wrote: >> > >> > > The link for subscribing to the MAKH discussion/symposium in Mike's >> > e-mail >> > > is broken in two lines. In case this creates difficulties to use it, I >> > copy >> > > it below in one line : >> > > >> > > https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l >> > > >> > > Alfredo >> > > ________________________________________ >> > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < >> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> >> > > on behalf of mike cole >> > > Sent: 17 April 2018 19:38 >> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> > > Subject: [Xmca-l] The Complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday >> > > >> > > Dear Colleagues, >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > Even before the death of Michael Halliday, I have been beginning to >> > > organize a discussion on the joint work of Vygotsky and Halliday. In >> this >> > > case I am acting >> > > >> > > in my capacity as "special project" editor of *MCA*. I would like to >> > create >> > > either a seminar or perhaps a special issue, of MCA on the topic of >> the >> > > complementarity of Vygotsky and Halliday. It is a project that is the >> > > personal concern of several members of xmca, and beyond who share a >> > common >> > > interest in the study of langugage, culture, mind and development. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > The question is, how to organize such a "joint project" symposium? I >> do >> > not >> > > think >> > > >> > > it was to expect it to happen on xmca. There are too many topics >> there, >> > and >> > > not everyone will be interested. And if everyone is interested we are >> > still >> > > likely to wander off on anoth interesting, related, topics, chaining >> our >> > > way through time. >> > > >> > > But this time we need a product. This product, of course, may contain >> > > essays >> > > >> > > that argue that there is no such complementarity, and those too, >> would be >> > > welcome. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > To enable creation of such a product, based upon the materials turned >> up, >> > > discussed, and created in the discussion, Bruce has kindly set up for >> us >> > a >> > > new >> > > >> > > discussion list called xlsv-makh. The process of signining up begins >> with >> > > the url given by Bruce below. We are asking people to subscribe in a >> way >> > > that will allow >> > > >> > > us to keep out bots and provide an archive of the discussion including >> > the >> > > common study materials collected. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > Bruce explains it this way. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > Just tell people to go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailm >> > > an/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l and follow the instructions for subscribing. >> > > >> > > Unsubscribing will be on the same web page. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > *NOTE: The https:// is a link for anyone whose file has lost the blue >> > > color >> > > of a live linke* >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > I have signed up. Everyone is welcome. Please post to whatever lists >> you >> > > >> > > on that you think relevant, such as the AERA sig, ISCAR, etc. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > As a kind of introduction to the idea of the complementarity LSV and >> > MAKH I >> > > am attaching a paper by Gordon Wells. Its sore of a candidate for >> > starting >> > > discussion. Those uncertain of whether to sign up or not might check >> out >> > > the paper to see if you are interested. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > Mike Cole >> > > >> > >> > From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Apr 18 06:35:31 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 06:35:31 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion Message-ID: Are people still having difficulty signing up? So far we have the following signed up. Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr efrazier at mtholyoke.edu mariana_achugar at yahoo.com mpacker at cantab.net bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this afternoon. mike From lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org Wed Apr 18 08:48:59 2018 From: lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org (Lois Holzman) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 11:48:59 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] call in info for the Master Class Message-ID: Hi All, Those of you who wish to participate in the May 12 discussion on The Polyphonic Autobiography, here is the Zoom call-in information. Lois Lois Holzman is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: LCHC Zoom Meeting Time: May 12, 2018 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/308965979 Or iPhone one-tap : US: +16699006833,,308965979# or +16465588656,,308965979# Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 646 558 8656 Meeting ID: 308 965 979 International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/bdzUq5hk3 -- Lois Holzman Director, East Side Institute for Group & Short Term Psychotherapy 119 West 23 St, suite 902 New York, NY 10011 Chair, Global Outreach, All Stars Project, UX Tel. +1.212.941.8906 x324 1-917-815-2664 lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org Social Media Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter Blogs Psychology Today | Psychology of Becoming | Mad in America Websites Lois Holzman | East Side Institute | Performing the World All Stars Project From blantonwe@gmail.com Wed Apr 18 13:18:29 2018 From: blantonwe@gmail.com (William Blanton) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 13:18:29 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Mike See if we can get me in today. Bill Blanton On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > Are people still having difficulty signing up? > So far we have the following signed up. > Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty > mike > > > dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > mpacker at cantab.net > bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > > I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > afternoon. > > mike From Dana.Walker@unco.edu Wed Apr 18 13:26:48 2018 From: Dana.Walker@unco.edu (Walker, Dana) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:26:48 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <56C970E9-6B35-4ECF-A0BD-CAFD78B7C6D2@unco.edu> I signed up this morning as well: dana.walker@unco.edu. Dana ?On 4/18/18, 7:37 AM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole" wrote: Are people still having difficulty signing up? So far we have the following signed up. Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr efrazier at mtholyoke.edu mariana_achugar at yahoo.com mpacker at cantab.net bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this afternoon. mike **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** From R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk Wed Apr 18 13:34:04 2018 From: R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk (Rod Parker-Rees) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:34:04 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have just found the confirmation request email in my 'clutter' folder so others might check their clutter/spam if they have not heard after trying to sign up. All the best, Rod -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of William Blanton Sent: 18 April 2018 21:18 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion Hi Mike See if we can get me in today. Bill Blanton On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > Are people still having difficulty signing up? > So far we have the following signed up. > Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike > > > dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > mpacker at cantab.net > bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > > I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > afternoon. > > mike ________________________________ [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. From bjones@ucsd.edu Wed Apr 18 17:57:28 2018 From: bjones@ucsd.edu (Bruce Jones) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 17:57:28 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH mailinglist. All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a daily basis for the near future. This should help. Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. -- Bruce Jones Sys Admin, LCHC bjones@ucsd.edu 619-823-8281 -- From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Wed Apr 18 19:01:30 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:01:30 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I signed up, but no verification email... -greg On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 2:34 PM, Rod Parker-Rees < R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > I have just found the confirmation request email in my 'clutter' folder so > others might check their clutter/spam if they have not heard after trying > to sign up. > > All the best, > > Rod > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of William Blanton > Sent: 18 April 2018 21:18 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion > > Hi Mike > > See if we can get me in today. > > Bill Blanton > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > > Are people still having difficulty signing up? > > So far we have the following signed up. > > Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike > > > > > > dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > > efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > > mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > > mpacker at cantab.net > > bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > > > > I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > > afternoon. > > > > mike > ________________________________ > [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > > This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for > the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. > If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts > no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails > and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility > for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied > by an official order form. > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From helenaworthen@gmail.com Wed Apr 18 19:05:50 2018 From: helenaworthen@gmail.com (Helena Worthen) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 19:05:50 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <86465E1D-860D-4003-B685-495C05C9585C@gmail.com> I would like to sign up, too. Thanks -- H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com On Apr 18, 2018, at 7:01 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > I signed up, but no verification email... > -greg > > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 2:34 PM, Rod Parker-Rees < > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > >> I have just found the confirmation request email in my 'clutter' folder so >> others might check their clutter/spam if they have not heard after trying >> to sign up. >> >> All the best, >> >> Rod >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> On Behalf Of William Blanton >> Sent: 18 April 2018 21:18 >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion >> >> Hi Mike >> >> See if we can get me in today. >> >> Bill Blanton >> >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:35 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> Are people still having difficulty signing up? >>> So far we have the following signed up. >>> Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike >>> >>> >>> dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr >>> efrazier at mtholyoke.edu >>> mariana_achugar at yahoo.com >>> mpacker at cantab.net >>> bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com >>> >>> I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this >>> afternoon. >>> >>> mike >> ________________________________ >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> >> >> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for >> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the >> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the >> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. >> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails >> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility >> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied >> by an official order form. >> >> > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Apr 18 20:30:46 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 20:30:46 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> Message-ID: Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. Archive or articles url?? sorry for the extra hassle mike On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: > I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH > mailinglist. > > All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a daily > basis for the near future. > > This should help. > > Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. > > -- > Bruce Jones > Sys Admin, LCHC > bjones@ucsd.edu > 619-823-8281 > > -- > From s.franklin08@btinternet.com Thu Apr 19 02:01:26 2018 From: s.franklin08@btinternet.com (Shirley FRANKLIN) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 10:01:26 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> Message-ID: <5D419411-4F86-44B3-B608-4836EA83DA27@btinternet.com> I would like to sign up please Sent from my iPhone > On 19 Apr 2018, at 04:30, mike cole wrote: > > Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? > Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. > > Archive or articles url?? > > sorry for the extra hassle > mike > >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: >> >> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH >> mailinglist. >> >> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a daily >> basis for the near future. >> >> This should help. >> >> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. >> >> -- >> Bruce Jones >> Sys Admin, LCHC >> bjones@ucsd.edu >> 619-823-8281 >> >> -- >> From laires11@gmail.com Thu Apr 19 03:21:08 2018 From: laires11@gmail.com (Luisa Aires) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:21:08 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: <86465E1D-860D-4003-B685-495C05C9585C@gmail.com> References: <86465E1D-860D-4003-B685-495C05C9585C@gmail.com> Message-ID: I would like to sign up. Thank you. Luisa A. 2018-04-19 3:05 GMT+01:00 Helena Worthen : > I would like to sign up, too. > Thanks -- > > H > > Helena Worthen > helenaworthen@gmail.com > Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com > > On Apr 18, 2018, at 7:01 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > > I signed up, but no verification email... > > -greg > > > > > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 2:34 PM, Rod Parker-Rees < > > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote: > > > >> I have just found the confirmation request email in my 'clutter' folder > so > >> others might check their clutter/spam if they have not heard after > trying > >> to sign up. > >> > >> All the best, > >> > >> Rod > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > >> On Behalf Of William Blanton > >> Sent: 18 April 2018 21:18 > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion > >> > >> Hi Mike > >> > >> See if we can get me in today. > >> > >> Bill Blanton > >> > >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 6:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > >>> Are people still having difficulty signing up? > >>> So far we have the following signed up. > >>> Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty mike > >>> > >>> > >>> dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > >>> efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > >>> mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > >>> mpacker at cantab.net > >>> bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > >>> > >>> I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > >>> afternoon. > >>> > >>> mike > >> ________________________________ > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif] >> //www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass> > >> > >> This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely > for > >> the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. If you are not the > >> intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the > >> information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on > it. > >> If you have received this email in error please let the sender know > >> immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not > >> necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University > accepts > >> no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan > emails > >> and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept > responsibility > >> for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its > >> attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless > accompanied > >> by an official order form. > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > -- Department of Education and Distance Learning, Universidade Aberta ObLID Network, UAb R. Amial, n? 752, 4200-055 Porto, Portugal laires@uab.pt www.uab.pt www.contemcom.org From gordonucsc@gmail.com Thu Apr 19 05:39:56 2018 From: gordonucsc@gmail.com (Gordon Wells) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 08:39:56 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Mike, I thought I had completed the sign-up procedure, but obviously not. Please will you help. Gordon Gordon Wells On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 9:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > Are people still having difficulty signing up? > So far we have the following signed up. > Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty > mike > > > dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > mpacker at cantab.net > bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > > I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > afternoon. > > mike > From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Apr 19 07:52:35 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 14:52:35 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Not where the confusion is, Gordon. You are in so far as I can see. Mike On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 5:41 AM Gordon Wells wrote: > Hi Mike, > > I thought I had completed the sign-up procedure, but obviously not. Please > will you help. > > Gordon > > Gordon Wells > > > > On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 9:35 AM, mike cole wrote: > > > Are people still having difficulty signing up? > > So far we have the following signed up. > > Please let us know if you are experiencing difficulty > > mike > > > > > > dkellogg60 at smu.ac.kr > > efrazier at mtholyoke.edu > > mariana_achugar at yahoo.com > > mpacker at cantab.net > > bronwynparkin18 at gmail.com > > > > I will be away from my computer this morning, but will check back this > > afternoon. > > > > mike > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Apr 19 21:54:59 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:54:59 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Andy's treasure trove Message-ID: Xmca-ites --- Rummaging around for a video tape I found myself in the middle of the web page that Andy has been compiling on vimeo. For all of those out there teaching and learning about LSV and the CHAT perspective, there are all sorts of useful materials here: https://vimeo.com/groups/chat/videos Try it, I think you will like it. mike From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Apr 22 10:38:39 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2018 10:38:39 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Michael Halliday - In Memoriam Message-ID: Last night the following message was posted at the memorial website for Michael Halliday. Thanks to Andy for assistance down under. Now to carry through on our task of creating a living memory. mike ------- April 22, 2018 On behalf of the editorial board and readership of *Mind, Culture, and Activity*, I am writing to express our collective sadness at the loss of Michael Halliday. News of his passing reached us just as we were undertaking a project focused on his work in relation to that of Lev Vygotsky and related scholars. We all agree with one of our community who wrote that Michael's enormous body of work in developing the theory of systemic functional linguistics is the single most important 20th century contribution to our understanding of language systems. He will be sorely missed by many friends and colleagues, but his work lives on in our own efforts to build upon his ideas and his example as a socially committed scholar. We are contributing to the owl fund, as requested. It seems fitting. To quote a common ancestor, "The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only as dusk falls." Michael Cole From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Apr 22 17:04:02 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2018 17:04:02 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Halliday Memorial Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, This morning there is a memorial service for Michael Halliday. In light of our recent discussions and current activities, with some help from Andy, I have sent the following note. It was done in a hurry and without your permission. I hope the occasion warrants my breech of ethics. mike On behalf of the editorial board and readership of *Mind, Culture, and Activity*, I am writing to express our collective sadness at the loss of Michael Halliday. News of his passing reached us just as we were undertaking a project focused on his work in relation to that of Lev Vygotsky and related scholars. We all agree with one of our community who wrote that Michael's enormous body of work in developing the theory of systemic functional linguistics is the single most important 20th century contribution to our understanding of language systems. He will be sorely missed by many friends and colleagues, but his work lives on in our own efforts to build upon his ideas and his example as a socially committed scholar. We are contributing to the owl fund. It seems fitting. To quote a common ancestor, "The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only as dusk falls." Michael Cole ------------------------------ (The owl fund, at www.owls.org was designated as a preferable to sending flowers.) From dangthikimanh@gmail.com Mon Apr 23 06:51:18 2018 From: dangthikimanh@gmail.com (Kim Anh Dang) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 23:51:18 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Halliday Memorial In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <062EF2FF-E70A-482C-BBCE-CDE3BFFD64CC@gmail.com> Dear Michael, Thank you very much for writing the meaningful and heartfelt note on our behalf just on time as Michael Halliday's funeral was held this morning. With my Master's thesis on Systemic Functional Linguistics and PhD on Sociocultural Theory, I really appreciate your note and cannot agree with you more about what you have written. I have been in contact with Prof Frances Christie, a close friend of Michael Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, who also wrote "Michael Halliday was a much loved man as well as being a brilliant scholar. We shall all miss him." Thanks very much again and I look forward to hearing more about your project on Halliday and Vygotsky. Best wishes, Kim Sent from my iPhone > On 23 Apr 2018, at 10:04 am, mike cole wrote: > > Dear Colleagues, > > This morning there is a memorial service for Michael Halliday. In light of > our > recent discussions and current activities, with some help from Andy, I have > sent the following note. It was done in a hurry and without your > permission. I hope the occasion warrants my breech of ethics. > > mike > > > > On behalf of the editorial board and readership of *Mind, Culture, and > Activity*, I am writing to express our collective > > sadness at the loss of Michael Halliday. News of his passing reached > us just as we were undertaking a project > > focused on his work in relation to that of Lev Vygotsky and related > scholars. We all agree with one of our > > community who wrote that Michael's enormous body of work in developing > the theory of systemic functional > > linguistics is the single most important 20th century contribution to > our understanding of language systems. > > He will be sorely missed by many friends and colleagues, but his work > lives on in our own efforts to build upon > > his ideas and his example as a socially committed scholar. > > > We are contributing to the owl fund. It seems fitting. To quote a common > ancestor, "The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only as dusk falls." > > > > Michael Cole > > > ------------------------------ > > (The owl fund, at www.owls.org was designated as a preferable to sending > flowers.) From dangthikimanh@gmail.com Mon Apr 23 07:01:37 2018 From: dangthikimanh@gmail.com (Kim Anh Dang) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:01:37 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> Message-ID: <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> Hi Mike, Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the original email about the process to sign up for this discussion. If it is not too late, could I join please? Thanks very much. Kind regards, Kim Sent from my iPhone > On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: > > Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? > Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. > > Archive or articles url?? > > sorry for the extra hassle > mike > >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: >> >> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH >> mailinglist. >> >> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a daily >> basis for the near future. >> >> This should help. >> >> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. >> >> -- >> Bruce Jones >> Sys Admin, LCHC >> bjones@ucsd.edu >> 619-823-8281 >> >> -- >> From andyb@marxists.org Mon Apr 23 07:10:14 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:10:14 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> Message-ID: <940aa6c2-dfc0-a8f6-899b-69ed4ab6fa52@marxists.org> go to https://mailman.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xlsv-makh-l a ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 24/04/2018 12:01 AM, Kim Anh Dang wrote: > Hi Mike, > > Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the original email about the process to sign up for this discussion. > > If it is not too late, could I join please? > > Thanks very much. > > Kind regards, > > Kim > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: >> >> Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? >> Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. >> >> Archive or articles url?? >> >> sorry for the extra hassle >> mike >> >>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: >>> >>> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH >>> mailinglist. >>> >>> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a daily >>> basis for the near future. >>> >>> This should help. >>> >>> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. >>> >>> -- >>> Bruce Jones >>> Sys Admin, LCHC >>> bjones@ucsd.edu >>> 619-823-8281 >>> >>> -- >>> From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Apr 23 12:07:43 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 12:07:43 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Kim, you are now signed in I see. All -- Seems like time to close the doors to group. If someone important is missing, please get them to sign up soon because it seems time to move from gathering an interested group to converting to a working group to produce a memorable academic result. To this end, I have exchanged notes with a couple of the people on the list (Natalia and Anna) who are invested in the topic, but unable to shift priorities to engage. They will be leaving the list so that we do not slip in to the "big audience is listening in" situation of xmca. I would appreciate it if others in the same circumstances would also recuse themselves, so to speak, for the time being. I promised to report back to xmca with the results of our efforts when we actually have some to report (!). In this regard, in response to Peter's and Greg's notes. I hope it is clear that I am not seeking a "one right answer" here. Stone soups mix a lot of flavors from their varied ingredients. I believe our biggest service here is to make clear where there are complementarities, where, as Peter puts it, there are irreconcilable differences, and how to be clear about the underlying paradigmatic differences that convert misunderstandings into irreconcilable differences. What are the differences that make a difference? \ What are the similarities that draw some people to believe in complementarity? What difference do the differences make in practice? It is this last question that seems to be crucial in a special issue. If we remain at the level of general theory without showing how the theoretical differences make a difference in our practice -- and what differences those practices mak-- who cares? What should young scholars entering the field know so that their practices are more effective (by what criteria)? Are their theoretical commitments put at risk by their practices? I am seeing A LOT of articles now that throw around various terms as an interpretive frame for results in hand, but where theory is not guiding practice at all, and there is no evidence of self-critical next steps to see if the interpretive frame is more than one of many possible post-hoc explanations. I do not know about you-all, but I feel a keen need to read and get straight the documents that we have gathered. If you are missing something, check out the archive of emails where they appear as attachments. We will try to gather them up at this end, but our volunteer fire department is being kept busy by my ineptness as getting the various email procedures straight. Over to those we have not heard from yet. I will follow up with David on the "rotation"/ingrowing/internalization problem, having added Martin's objection to internalization to my reading list. mike On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 7:01 AM, Kim Anh Dang wrote: > Hi Mike, > > Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the original > email about the process to sign up for this discussion. > > If it is not too late, could I join please? > > Thanks very much. > > Kind regards, > > Kim > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: > > > > Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? > > Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. > > > > Archive or articles url?? > > > > sorry for the extra hassle > > mike > > > >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: > >> > >> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH > >> mailinglist. > >> > >> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a > daily > >> basis for the near future. > >> > >> This should help. > >> > >> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. > >> > >> -- > >> Bruce Jones > >> Sys Admin, LCHC > >> bjones@ucsd.edu > >> 619-823-8281 > >> > >> -- > >> > > From Dana.Walker@unco.edu Mon Apr 23 13:28:29 2018 From: Dana.Walker@unco.edu (Walker, Dana) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 20:28:29 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4930C420-F755-441F-BB7D-32BEF5D07AB1@unco.edu> I guess I will need to recuse myself. I was hoping to learn from this conversation, but that does not appear to be the purpose of this new sub-group. Dana Walker ?On 4/23/18, 1:09 PM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole" wrote: Hi Kim, you are now signed in I see. All -- Seems like time to close the doors to group. If someone important is missing, please get them to sign up soon because it seems time to move from gathering an interested group to converting to a working group to produce a memorable academic result. To this end, I have exchanged notes with a couple of the people on the list (Natalia and Anna) who are invested in the topic, but unable to shift priorities to engage. They will be leaving the list so that we do not slip in to the "big audience is listening in" situation of xmca. I would appreciate it if others in the same circumstances would also recuse themselves, so to speak, for the time being. I promised to report back to xmca with the results of our efforts when we actually have some to report (!). In this regard, in response to Peter's and Greg's notes. I hope it is clear that I am not seeking a "one right answer" here. Stone soups mix a lot of flavors from their varied ingredients. I believe our biggest service here is to make clear where there are complementarities, where, as Peter puts it, there are irreconcilable differences, and how to be clear about the underlying paradigmatic differences that convert misunderstandings into irreconcilable differences. What are the differences that make a difference? \ What are the similarities that draw some people to believe in complementarity? What difference do the differences make in practice? It is this last question that seems to be crucial in a special issue. If we remain at the level of general theory without showing how the theoretical differences make a difference in our practice -- and what differences those practices mak-- who cares? What should young scholars entering the field know so that their practices are more effective (by what criteria)? Are their theoretical commitments put at risk by their practices? I am seeing A LOT of articles now that throw around various terms as an interpretive frame for results in hand, but where theory is not guiding practice at all, and there is no evidence of self-critical next steps to see if the interpretive frame is more than one of many possible post-hoc explanations. I do not know about you-all, but I feel a keen need to read and get straight the documents that we have gathered. If you are missing something, check out the archive of emails where they appear as attachments. We will try to gather them up at this end, but our volunteer fire department is being kept busy by my ineptness as getting the various email procedures straight. Over to those we have not heard from yet. I will follow up with David on the "rotation"/ingrowing/internalization problem, having added Martin's objection to internalization to my reading list. mike On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 7:01 AM, Kim Anh Dang wrote: > Hi Mike, > > Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the original > email about the process to sign up for this discussion. > > If it is not too late, could I join please? > > Thanks very much. > > Kind regards, > > Kim > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: > > > > Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? > > Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. > > > > Archive or articles url?? > > > > sorry for the extra hassle > > mike > > > >> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: > >> > >> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH > >> mailinglist. > >> > >> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a > daily > >> basis for the near future. > >> > >> This should help. > >> > >> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. > >> > >> -- > >> Bruce Jones > >> Sys Admin, LCHC > >> bjones@ucsd.edu > >> 619-823-8281 > >> > >> -- > >> > > **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** From mpacker@cantab.net Mon Apr 23 15:21:47 2018 From: mpacker@cantab.net (Martin Packer) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 17:21:47 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: <4930C420-F755-441F-BB7D-32BEF5D07AB1@unco.edu> References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> <4930C420-F755-441F-BB7D-32BEF5D07AB1@unco.edu> Message-ID: <4EC4BD58-A8EA-40C7-A962-19C09EAE7708@cantab.net> Dana, if you tell the group what it is that you?d most like to learn, you?ll satisfy Mike?s requirements. :) We?re *all* there to learn! Martin "I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr. Lowie or discuss matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, I become at once aware that my partner does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually with the feeling that this also applies to myself? (Malinowski, 1930) > On Apr 23, 2018, at 3:28 PM, Walker, Dana wrote: > > I guess I will need to recuse myself. I was hoping to learn from this conversation, but that does not appear to be the purpose of this new sub-group. > Dana Walker > > ?On 4/23/18, 1:09 PM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole" wrote: > > Hi Kim, you are now signed in I see. > > All -- Seems like time to close the doors to group. If someone important is > missing, please get them to sign up soon because it seems time to move from > gathering an interested group to converting to a working group to produce a > memorable academic > result. > > To this end, I have exchanged notes with a couple of the people on the > list (Natalia and Anna) who are invested in the topic, but unable to shift > priorities to engage. They will be leaving the list so that we do not slip > in to the "big audience is listening in" situation of xmca. I would > appreciate it if others in the same circumstances would also recuse > themselves, so to speak, for the time being. I promised to report back to > xmca with the results of our efforts when we actually have some to report > (!). > > In this regard, in response to Peter's and Greg's notes. I hope it is clear > that I am not > seeking a "one right answer" here. Stone soups mix a lot of flavors from > their varied > ingredients. I believe our biggest service here is to make clear where > there are complementarities, where, as Peter puts it, there are > irreconcilable differences, and how to be clear about the underlying > paradigmatic differences that convert misunderstandings into irreconcilable > differences. > > What are the differences that make a difference? \ > What are the similarities that draw some people to believe in > complementarity? > What difference do the differences make in practice? > > It is this last question that seems to be crucial in a special issue. If we > remain at the level of general theory without showing how the theoretical > differences make a difference in our practice -- and what differences those > practices mak-- who cares? > What should young scholars entering the field know so that their practices > are more > effective (by what criteria)? Are their theoretical commitments put at risk > by their > practices? > > I am seeing A LOT of articles now that throw around various terms as an > interpretive frame for results in hand, but where theory is not guiding > practice at all, and there is no evidence of self-critical next steps to > see if the interpretive frame is more than one of many possible post-hoc > explanations. > > I do not know about you-all, but I feel a keen need to read and get > straight the > documents that we have gathered. If you are missing something, check out the > archive of emails where they appear as attachments. We will try to gather > them up at this end, but our volunteer fire department is being kept busy > by my ineptness > as getting the various email procedures straight. > > Over to those we have not heard from yet. > I will follow up with David on the "rotation"/ingrowing/internalization > problem, having added Martin's objection to internalization to my reading > list. > > mike > > On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 7:01 AM, Kim Anh Dang > wrote: > >> Hi Mike, >> >> Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the original >> email about the process to sign up for this discussion. >> >> If it is not too late, could I join please? >> >> Thanks very much. >> >> Kind regards, >> >> Kim >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: >>> >>> Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? >>> Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. >>> >>> Archive or articles url?? >>> >>> sorry for the extra hassle >>> mike >>> >>>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: >>>> >>>> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the LSV-MAKH >>>> mailinglist. >>>> >>>> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a >> daily >>>> basis for the near future. >>>> >>>> This should help. >>>> >>>> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Bruce Jones >>>> Sys Admin, LCHC >>>> bjones@ucsd.edu >>>> 619-823-8281 >>>> >>>> -- >>>> >> >> > **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials when prompted by external links.** > > > From mcole@ucsd.edu Mon Apr 23 15:34:07 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:34:07 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Signing up for the LSV-MAKH discussion, version 2 In-Reply-To: <4EC4BD58-A8EA-40C7-A962-19C09EAE7708@cantab.net> References: <4a0d7fc4-7c73-6e97-f121-e8ddde32a748@ucsd.edu> <66488CA4-667F-40A0-BEFD-24C128038111@gmail.com> <4930C420-F755-441F-BB7D-32BEF5D07AB1@unco.edu> <4EC4BD58-A8EA-40C7-A962-19C09EAE7708@cantab.net> Message-ID: Hi Dana-- et al -- Martin is totally correct. If you would ask questions, for example, it would be marvelous. Its the "purely observational" part that turns learners into "lurkers" and that simultaneously turns teachers into over-the-top performers, making it hard to participate. As you can see, i am not sufficiently knowledgeable about several of the people who figure in this inquiry and *I* want to learn too. Why else spend the time when its gorgeous in my yard and the vegetables are asking for help? Back to learning by reading. :-) mike On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 3:21 PM, Martin Packer wrote: > Dana, if you tell the group what it is that you?d most like to learn, > you?ll satisfy Mike?s requirements. :) > > We?re *all* there to learn! > > Martin > > "I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr. Lowie or discuss > matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber, I become at once aware that my > partner does not understand anything in the matter, and I end usually with > the feeling that this also applies to myself? (Malinowski, 1930) > > > > > On Apr 23, 2018, at 3:28 PM, Walker, Dana wrote: > > > > I guess I will need to recuse myself. I was hoping to learn from this > conversation, but that does not appear to be the purpose of this new > sub-group. > > Dana Walker > > > > ?On 4/23/18, 1:09 PM, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of > mike cole" > wrote: > > > > Hi Kim, you are now signed in I see. > > > > All -- Seems like time to close the doors to group. If someone > important is > > missing, please get them to sign up soon because it seems time to > move from > > gathering an interested group to converting to a working group to > produce a > > memorable academic > > result. > > > > To this end, I have exchanged notes with a couple of the people on > the > > list (Natalia and Anna) who are invested in the topic, but unable to > shift > > priorities to engage. They will be leaving the list so that we do not > slip > > in to the "big audience is listening in" situation of xmca. I would > > appreciate it if others in the same circumstances would also recuse > > themselves, so to speak, for the time being. I promised to report > back to > > xmca with the results of our efforts when we actually have some to > report > > (!). > > > > In this regard, in response to Peter's and Greg's notes. I hope it is > clear > > that I am not > > seeking a "one right answer" here. Stone soups mix a lot of flavors > from > > their varied > > ingredients. I believe our biggest service here is to make clear where > > there are complementarities, where, as Peter puts it, there are > > irreconcilable differences, and how to be clear about the underlying > > paradigmatic differences that convert misunderstandings into > irreconcilable > > differences. > > > > What are the differences that make a difference? \ > > What are the similarities that draw some people to believe in > > complementarity? > > What difference do the differences make in practice? > > > > It is this last question that seems to be crucial in a special issue. > If we > > remain at the level of general theory without showing how the > theoretical > > differences make a difference in our practice -- and what differences > those > > practices mak-- who cares? > > What should young scholars entering the field know so that their > practices > > are more > > effective (by what criteria)? Are their theoretical commitments put > at risk > > by their > > practices? > > > > I am seeing A LOT of articles now that throw around various terms as > an > > interpretive frame for results in hand, but where theory is not > guiding > > practice at all, and there is no evidence of self-critical next steps > to > > see if the interpretive frame is more than one of many possible > post-hoc > > explanations. > > > > I do not know about you-all, but I feel a keen need to read and get > > straight the > > documents that we have gathered. If you are missing something, check > out the > > archive of emails where they appear as attachments. We will try to > gather > > them up at this end, but our volunteer fire department is being kept > busy > > by my ineptness > > as getting the various email procedures straight. > > > > Over to those we have not heard from yet. > > I will follow up with David on the "rotation"/ingrowing/ > internalization > > problem, having added Martin's objection to internalization to my > reading > > list. > > > > mike > > > > On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 7:01 AM, Kim Anh Dang < > dangthikimanh@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > >> Hi Mike, > >> > >> Is this too late to sign up for this? Sorry I have not found the > original > >> email about the process to sign up for this discussion. > >> > >> If it is not too late, could I join please? > >> > >> Thanks very much. > >> > >> Kind regards, > >> > >> Kim > >> > >> Sent from my iPhone > >> > >>> On 19 Apr 2018, at 1:30 pm, mike cole wrote: > >>> > >>> Maybe people do not understand the confirmation delay? > >>> Try that out on them and lets see how it goes. > >>> > >>> Archive or articles url?? > >>> > >>> sorry for the extra hassle > >>> mike > >>> > >>>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 5:57 PM, Bruce Jones wrote: > >>>> > >>>> I removed the confirmation requirement for subscriptions to the > LSV-MAKH > >>>> mailinglist. > >>>> > >>>> All that's current required is my approval, which I will apply on a > >> daily > >>>> basis for the near future. > >>>> > >>>> This should help. > >>>> > >>>> Please refer any problems to me rather than the xmca list. > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> Bruce Jones > >>>> Sys Admin, LCHC > >>>> bjones@ucsd.edu > >>>> 619-823-8281 > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> > >> > >> > > **This message originated from outside UNC. Please use caution when > opening attachments or following links. Do not enter your UNC credentials > when prompted by external links.** > > > > > > > > From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Tue Apr 24 17:18:25 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:18:25 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] CHAT introductory articles? Message-ID: I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. Any suggestions? -greg -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 24 20:37:35 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 03:37:35 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Chapter from Nandi and Kaptelinin is straightforward and might work well. Mike On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 5:20 PM Greg Thompson wrote: > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > Any suggestions? > -greg > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Apr 24 20:37:35 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 03:37:35 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Chapter from Nandi and Kaptelinin is straightforward and might work well. Mike On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 5:20 PM Greg Thompson wrote: > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > Any suggestions? > -greg > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Tue Apr 24 21:43:20 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 13:43:20 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Do you know, Greg, one of the papers I've always found most undergraduate friendly is the chapter by Mescharyakov on Vygotsky's terminology in the Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky? I really don't know why this is. Maybe because one of the first questions you get is why it should be called "Cultural Historical" (rather than, as the French put it, "historico-cultural" or "sociocultural", or whatever). And Mescharyakov's answer is really, it shouldn't be, unless you are working on problems of that particular timescale. Even though we were not really working on problems of that timescale, Shushu was so taken with it that we included a summary in our paper for the MLJ: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01236.x If some of your undergrads are planning on going into ELT, her work might be a good place to start (although starting with a summary of a starting place is a little like announcing that you are going to get up and then snoring off again....) David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 12:37 PM, mike cole wrote: > Chapter from Nandi and Kaptelinin is straightforward and might work well. > Mike > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 5:20 PM Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > > Any suggestions? > > -greg > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > From Garry.ODell@uon.edu.au Tue Apr 24 22:55:04 2018 From: Garry.ODell@uon.edu.au (Garry O'Dell) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 05:55:04 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Hi Greg, I found this book useful in my initial readings Lisa C. Yamagata-Lynch Activity Systems Analysis Methods Understanding Complex Learning Environments ISBN 978-1-4419-6320-8 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-6321-5 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-6321-5 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010929693 ? Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 Regards, Garry O'Dell Newcastle Business School Faculty of Business and Law University of Newcastle, 409 Hunter Street, NEWCASTLE NSW 2300 Australia https://www.linkedin.com/in/garry-o-dell-7b613439/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB8Bt6qoyOs ________________________________ This email is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Kellogg Sent: Wednesday, 25 April 2018 2:43:20 PM To: Mike Cole; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? Do you know, Greg, one of the papers I've always found most undergraduate friendly is the chapter by Mescharyakov on Vygotsky's terminology in the Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky? I really don't know why this is. Maybe because one of the first questions you get is why it should be called "Cultural Historical" (rather than, as the French put it, "historico-cultural" or "sociocultural", or whatever). And Mescharyakov's answer is really, it shouldn't be, unless you are working on problems of that particular timescale. Even though we were not really working on problems of that timescale, Shushu was so taken with it that we included a summary in our paper for the MLJ: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2011.01236.x If some of your undergrads are planning on going into ELT, her work might be a good place to start (although starting with a summary of a starting place is a little like announcing that you are going to get up and then snoring off again....) David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 12:37 PM, mike cole wrote: > Chapter from Nandi and Kaptelinin is straightforward and might work well. > Mike > > On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 5:20 PM Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > > Any suggestions? > > -greg > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Apr 24 23:29:51 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:29:51 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1524637791882.50739@iped.uio.no> For the educational context there is also Roth & Lee 2007 in Review of Educational Research. Downloadable here: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_07.dir/pdfZnZzOtRuom.pdf Alfredo Jornet ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Greg Thompson Sent: 25 April 2018 02:18 To: xmca-l@ucsd.edu Cc: Katie Watkins Subject: [Xmca-l] CHAT introductory articles? I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. Any suggestions? -greg -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Tue Apr 24 23:29:51 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 06:29:51 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1524637791882.50739@iped.uio.no> For the educational context there is also Roth & Lee 2007 in Review of Educational Research. Downloadable here: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2011_07.dir/pdfZnZzOtRuom.pdf Alfredo Jornet ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Greg Thompson Sent: 25 April 2018 02:18 To: xmca-l@ucsd.edu Cc: Katie Watkins Subject: [Xmca-l] CHAT introductory articles? I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. Any suggestions? -greg -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Wed Apr 25 04:26:56 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 12:26:56 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Greg, The following (link below) may be of value for three reasons. First because it compares and contrasts different approaches (for which some people have found helpful). Second because it should help reinforce that "CHAT" is not a single coherent subject and serves as a warning that by plumping say for Engesrom's version, you may be obscuring the real psychological gems. Third because it entails a partial historical and comparative analysis. Whether the referred to researchers have moved on in their conceptions is not the focus. What may be explored in the comparisons are the contributing perspectives. The table in the paper highlights some of the more obvious areas of difference between approaches, which could be used in support of an ongoing class discussion in which different perspectives are brought to the conversation (assuming that a lively debate is desired). The coarse nature of the paper is also an invitation for others to ruminate on the issues. Although you say it is for undergraduate introductory material, I see no reason why students with a genuine enthusiasm should not be introduced to ideas such as genetic logic (although this will no doubt make things more difficult for examination etc). The principle term I would change in this paper is my reference to the object of activity, which according to Bedny's account pertains to the task goal (i.e. the objective of the activity). As I see it the object of activity (proper) merely serves to locate the nexus of action in an ostensive manner. https://www.academia.edu/24660665/A_Comparison_of_Seven_Historical_Research_Orientations_within_CHAT_up_to_2001_ Best, Huw On 25 April 2018 at 01:18, Greg Thompson wrote: > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > Any suggestions? > -greg > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Wed Apr 25 04:26:56 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 12:26:56 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Greg, The following (link below) may be of value for three reasons. First because it compares and contrasts different approaches (for which some people have found helpful). Second because it should help reinforce that "CHAT" is not a single coherent subject and serves as a warning that by plumping say for Engesrom's version, you may be obscuring the real psychological gems. Third because it entails a partial historical and comparative analysis. Whether the referred to researchers have moved on in their conceptions is not the focus. What may be explored in the comparisons are the contributing perspectives. The table in the paper highlights some of the more obvious areas of difference between approaches, which could be used in support of an ongoing class discussion in which different perspectives are brought to the conversation (assuming that a lively debate is desired). The coarse nature of the paper is also an invitation for others to ruminate on the issues. Although you say it is for undergraduate introductory material, I see no reason why students with a genuine enthusiasm should not be introduced to ideas such as genetic logic (although this will no doubt make things more difficult for examination etc). The principle term I would change in this paper is my reference to the object of activity, which according to Bedny's account pertains to the task goal (i.e. the objective of the activity). As I see it the object of activity (proper) merely serves to locate the nexus of action in an ostensive manner. https://www.academia.edu/24660665/A_Comparison_of_Seven_Historical_Research_Orientations_within_CHAT_up_to_2001_ Best, Huw On 25 April 2018 at 01:18, Greg Thompson wrote: > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > Any suggestions? > -greg > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > From jwmuic@gmail.com Wed Apr 25 08:56:04 2018 From: jwmuic@gmail.com (Jose W. Melendez) Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2018 10:56:04 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: CHAT introductory articles? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Greg, For undergraduates the following may be accessible: Greeno, J. G., & Engestr?m, Y. (2014). Learning in activity. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), *The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences* (2nd Edition). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Jos? *Jos? W. Mel?ndez, Ph.D.* Postdoctoral Fellow in Teaching & Mentoring University of Illinois @ Chicago (UIC) Honors College 828 S. Halsted St. 104 Burnham Hall (MC 204) Chicago, IL., 60607 Office: 312-355-0053 https://www.honors.uic.edu http://praxisplanning.com On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 6:26 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Hi Greg, > > The following (link below) may be of value for three reasons. First because > it compares and contrasts different approaches (for which some people have > found helpful). Second because it should help reinforce that "CHAT" is not > a single coherent subject and serves as a warning that by plumping say for > Engesrom's version, you may be obscuring the real psychological gems. Third > because it entails a partial historical and comparative analysis. Whether > the referred to researchers have moved on in their conceptions is not the > focus. What may be explored in the comparisons are the contributing > perspectives. The table in the paper highlights some of the more obvious > areas of difference between approaches, which could be used in support of > an ongoing class discussion in which different perspectives are brought to > the conversation (assuming that a lively debate is desired). The coarse > nature of the paper is also an invitation for others to ruminate on the > issues. > > Although you say it is for undergraduate introductory material, I see no > reason why students with a genuine enthusiasm should not be introduced to > ideas such as genetic logic (although this will no doubt make things more > difficult for examination etc). The principle term I would change in this > paper is my reference to the object of activity, which according to Bedny's > account pertains to the task goal (i.e. the objective of the activity). As > I see it the object of activity (proper) merely serves to locate the nexus > of action in an ostensive manner. > > https://www.academia.edu/24660665/A_Comparison_of_ > Seven_Historical_Research_Orientations_within_CHAT_up_to_2001_ > > Best, > Huw > > > On 25 April 2018 at 01:18, Greg Thompson > wrote: > > > I am looking for good articles to introduce CHAT (or just AT) to > > undergraduate students. I am looking for 1-3 article length pieces. > > Any suggestions? > > -greg > > > > -- > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > > Assistant Professor > > Department of Anthropology > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > > Brigham Young University > > Provo, UT 84602 > > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > From robsub@ariadne.org.uk Thu Apr 26 03:56:43 2018 From: robsub@ariadne.org.uk (robsub@ariadne.org.uk) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 11:56:43 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Thank you to Peter Message-ID: I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proximal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call it, the ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the time..... Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit culture, becomes ever more stark. I hope I am making sense. From andyb@marxists.org Thu Apr 26 05:07:19 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 22:07:19 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] help with Russian Message-ID: Is there anyone on this list who has a Russian translation of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and could therefore tell me the conventional Russian translations of certain German words Hegel uses. The answers are not obvious, because in both English and German, the relevant words are used in ordinary speech to index many different concepts, and vice versa, the relevant concepts are rendered in ordinary speech in many different interchangeable words, and on the whole there is no correspondence between English and German. Thank you. Andy -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Apr 26 09:58:12 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 09:58:12 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Makes good sense to me, Rob. I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and boards. Beats a gallows by a verst or two! BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. mike (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk < robsub@ariadne.org.uk> wrote: > I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to "Deconflating > the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". https://www.researchgate.net/p > ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right about > the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call it, the > ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to analyse > why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that I was > thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being officially A Retired > Person is that I have the leisure to study these things in the detail I > needed when I was working and did not have the time..... > > Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, the > stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is massive, rigid, > and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. Although I have never > quite been in tune with the idea of instructional scaffolding, it has > always seemed to me that its point must be flexibility - taking bits away > from it must be at least as important as putting them there in the first > place. So, whenever I think about instructional scaffolding, I first have > to get past the jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity make > it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with policy makers, > especially in today's audit culture. > > The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was also > very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But also > something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because CHAT and the > activity triangle are all about context. > > This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a lesson > plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will approach each > other in ways that produce conflict over product and process, with the > student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs to be viewed as an > intensely relational process, one requiring mutual understanding and > negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know that (I would say) but > policy makers, at least in this country, don't. They love lesson plans and > teachers are coerced into achieving the aims in the lesson plan regardless > of where the lesson is actually going. The disjunction between what we know > to be good teaching on the one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of > neoliberal audit culture, becomes ever more stark. > > I hope I am making sense. > From smago@uga.edu Thu Apr 26 12:57:38 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:57:38 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). And this is the text: Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter Makes good sense to me, Rob. I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and boards. Beats a gallows by a verst or two! BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. mike (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk < robsub@ariadne.org.uk> wrote: > I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > https://www.researchgate.net/p > ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > it, the > ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the time..... > > Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit culture, becomes ever more stark. > > I hope I am making sense. > From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Apr 26 13:02:15 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 20:02:15 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Peter! Mike On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the > following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. > The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a > child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the > same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > > > See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I > observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of > Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, > man,1930, p. 202). > > > > And this is the text: > > > > Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his > muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the > same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of > locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists > of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, > rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to > move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it > begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes > use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along > holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the > chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is > not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the > scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a > month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding > it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been > replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed > strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child > has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > > I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > > With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - > literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around > public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and > boards. > > Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > > BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at > times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this > very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written > on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a > broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is > interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > > > > mike > > (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > > > > I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > > "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > > https://www.researchgate.net/p > > > ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > > scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > > mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > > > > > I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > > > about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > > > it, the > > > ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > > analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > > > I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > > officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > > > things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the > time..... > > > > > > Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > > > > > I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > > > metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > > > the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > > massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > > > Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > > instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > > > must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > > > important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > > > think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the > jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > > > > > I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > > independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > > > teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > > > make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > > policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > > > > > The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > > > also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > > > also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > > > CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > > > > > This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > > > instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > > lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > > > approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > > > process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > > > to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > > > understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > > > that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > > > They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > > > aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > > > going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > > > one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > culture, becomes ever more stark. > > > > > > I hope I am making sense. > > > > From julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk Thu Apr 26 13:47:53 2018 From: julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk (Julian Williams) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 20:47:53 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to PeterS Message-ID: Peter (too many Peters: shall we say PeterS?) Surely this (Bruner vs Vygotsky) is a difference - a small one but maybe a significant one for some purposes... the point being that cultural resources can act as 'scaffolding' in learning/development, whether these arise/emerge in the environment (a) with or (b) without (pedagogic) design. Maybe research into the latter (i.e. (b) 'without design', as it were, 'naturally' in the 'everyday' cultural practice) might inform the former (i.e. (a) designed scaffolds by pedagogues or others) because of the principle of functionality - ie the everyday is presumed to provide a cultural-evolutionary 'force' that made for functionality - which links to the outside-inside school literature, 'funds of knowledge/identity' etc. You can associate this with the discussion of the 'restricted code' (everyday, home, work configurations ...) and the 'elaborated code' (schooled, scientific, management-control configured) : the child who tries to learn to walk/ride a bike through 'elaborated' instructions of a pedagogue will doubtless fail (imagine: "now put the left leg forward, get balanced on your foot, and then move the right leg..."). A reflection that needs more reflection ... In these readings and discussions I keep coming back to draw on Bourdieu's work, and sometimes as with the Carl Ratner paper Haydi gave us - thanks! - to Foucault. But Im reluctant to expand our discussions' horizons too much... I think one of the pressures comes from the history involved here. Vygotsky lived in certain times: despite Ratners referencing of Vygotsky on class, there was almost nothing in Vygotsky about class struggle and oppression, and it is not obviously embedded in his theory, yet this is evidently quite significant to Bourdieu, and Halliday/Hasan/Bernstein living in different times and places. Mike raised the question of historicity and Id say time-place in theoretical discussions - I think maybe this should be a concern we could benefit from scholarly input on this. Julian ?On 27/04/2018, 06:04, "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of mike cole" wrote: Thanks Peter! Mike On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the > following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. > The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a > child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the > same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > > > See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I > observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of > Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, > man,1930, p. 202). > > > > And this is the text: > > > > Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his > muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the > same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of > locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists > of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, > rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to > move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it > begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes > use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along > holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the > chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is > not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the > scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a > month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding > it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been > replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed > strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child > has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > > I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > > With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - > literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around > public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and > boards. > > Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > > BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at > times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this > very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written > on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a > broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is > interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > > > > mike > > (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > > > > I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > > "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > > https://www.researchgate.net/p > > > ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > > scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > > mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > > > > > I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > > > about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > > > it, the > > > ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > > analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > > > I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > > officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > > > things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the > time..... > > > > > > Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > > > > > I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > > > metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > > > the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > > massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > > > Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > > instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > > > must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > > > important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > > > think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the > jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > > > > > I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > > independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > > > teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > > > make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > > policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > > > > > The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > > > also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > > > also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > > > CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > > > > > This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > > > instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > > lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > > > approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > > > process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > > > to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > > > understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > > > that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > > > They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > > > aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > > > going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > > > one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > culture, becomes ever more stark. > > > > > > I hope I am making sense. > > > > From hshonerd@gmail.com Thu Apr 26 15:56:24 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 16:56:24 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> Peter, et. al. In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. Henry > On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > Thanks Peter! > Mike > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > >> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the >> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. >> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a >> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the >> same, but the concept seems very different to me. >> >> >> >> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I >> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of >> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, >> man,1930, p. 202). >> >> >> >> And this is the text: >> >> >> >> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his >> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the >> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of >> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists >> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, >> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to >> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it >> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The >> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes >> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along >> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the >> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is >> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the >> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a >> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding >> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been >> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed >> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child >> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: >> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter >> >> >> >> Makes good sense to me, Rob. >> >> >> >> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but >> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. >> >> >> >> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - >> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around >> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and >> boards. >> >> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! >> >> >> >> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at >> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this >> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written >> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a >> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is >> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. >> >> >> >> mike >> >> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) >> >> >> >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: >> >> >> >>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to >> >>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". >> >>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >> >>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ >> >>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi >> >>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development >> >>> >> >>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right >> >>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call >> >>> it, the >> >>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to >> >>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that >> >>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being >> >>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these >> >>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the >> time..... >> >>> >> >>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. >> >>> >> >>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of >> >>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, >> >>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is >> >>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. >> >>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of >> >>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point >> >>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as >> >>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I >> >>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the >> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. >> >>> >> >>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, >> >>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with >> >>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity >> >>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with >> >>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. >> >>> >> >>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was >> >>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But >> >>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because >> >>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. >> >>> >> >>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that >> >>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a >> >>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will >> >>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and >> >>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs >> >>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual >> >>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know >> >>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. >> >>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the >> >>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually >> >>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the >> >>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit >> culture, becomes ever more stark. >> >>> >> >>> I hope I am making sense. >> >>> >> From mpacker@cantab.net Thu Apr 26 16:10:49 2018 From: mpacker@cantab.net (Martin Packer) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 18:10:49 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> Message-ID: <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? Martin > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > Peter, et. al. > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > Henry > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: >> >> Thanks Peter! >> Mike >> >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: >> >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me. >>> >>> >>> >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, >>> man,1930, p. 202). >>> >>> >>> >>> And this is the text: >>> >>> >>> >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. >>> >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter >>> >>> >>> >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. >>> >>> >>> >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. >>> >>> >>> >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and >>> boards. >>> >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! >>> >>> >>> >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. >>> >>> >>> >>> mike >>> >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to >>> >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". >>> >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ >>> >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi >>> >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right >>> >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call >>> >>>> it, the >>> >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to >>> >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that >>> >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being >>> >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these >>> >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the >>> time..... >>> >>>> >>> >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of >>> >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, >>> >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is >>> >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. >>> >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of >>> >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point >>> >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as >>> >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I >>> >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, >>> >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with >>> >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity >>> >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with >>> >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was >>> >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But >>> >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because >>> >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that >>> >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a >>> >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will >>> >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and >>> >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs >>> >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual >>> >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know >>> >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. >>> >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the >>> >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually >>> >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the >>> >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I hope I am making sense. >>> >>>> >>> > > From mpacker@cantab.net Thu Apr 26 17:27:53 2018 From: mpacker@cantab.net (Martin Packer) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:27:53 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8BD82DC3-60DB-487A-81BB-7CC70713BBF3@cantab.net> According to my notes, it was Luria who wrote the third chapter of Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, man. Martin > On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:57 PM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > > > See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > > > And this is the text: > > > > Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > > I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > > With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and boards. > > Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > > BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > > > > mike > > (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk < robsub@ariadne.org.uk> wrote: > > > >> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > >> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > >> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > >> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > >> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > >> > >> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > >> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > >> it, the > >> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > >> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > >> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > >> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > >> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the time..... > >> > >> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > >> > >> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > >> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > >> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > >> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > >> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > >> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > >> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > >> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > >> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > >> > >> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > >> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > >> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > >> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > >> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > >> > >> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > >> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > >> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > >> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > >> > >> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > >> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > >> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > >> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > >> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > >> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > >> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > >> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > >> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > >> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > >> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > >> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit culture, becomes ever more stark. > >> > >> I hope I am making sense. > >> From Peg.Griffin@att.net Thu Apr 26 17:45:28 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 20:45:28 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> Message-ID: <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are or are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. Peg -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? Martin > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > Peter, et. al. > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > Henry > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: >> >> Thanks Peter! >> Mike >> >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky wrote: >> >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me the >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner did. >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me. >>> >>> >>> >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, >>> man,1930, p. 202). >>> >>> >>> >>> And this is the text: >>> >>> >>> >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading pedologists >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small quadruped, >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time to >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, it >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child makes >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to walk is >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, discarding >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having developed >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the child >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. >>> >>> >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter >>> >>> >>> >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. >>> >>> >>> >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. >>> >>> >>> >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes and >>> boards. >>> >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! >>> >>> >>> >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term at >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on this >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has written >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. >>> >>> >>> >>> mike >>> >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to >>> >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". >>> >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p >>> >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ >>> >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi >>> >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right >>> >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call >>> >>>> it, the >>> >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to >>> >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that >>> >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being >>> >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these >>> >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the >>> time..... >>> >>>> >>> >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of >>> >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, >>> >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is >>> >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. >>> >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of >>> >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point >>> >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as >>> >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I >>> >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, >>> >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with >>> >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity >>> >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with >>> >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was >>> >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But >>> >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because >>> >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that >>> >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a >>> >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will >>> >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and >>> >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs >>> >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual >>> >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know >>> >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. >>> >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the >>> >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually >>> >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the >>> >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> I hope I am making sense. >>> >>>> >>> > > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: RembrandtBeginningWalking.pptx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation Size: 109298 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180426/67c1a66b/attachment.bin From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Apr 26 19:58:46 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:58:46 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter might call that a zone of nearest development! Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) mike On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are or > are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is essential > and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts to > get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > Peg > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend quite a > bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a phenomenon I > find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting to > walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a > child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not > yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone, > the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler will > head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to > be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? > > Martin > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > Peter, et. al. > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes > to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most > adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That > would be endangerment in a court of law. > > Henry > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> > >> Thanks Peter! > >> Mike > >> > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > wrote: > >> > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me > the > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner > did. > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a > >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the > >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I > >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of > >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, > >>> man,1930, p. 202). > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> And this is the text: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his > >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the > >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of > >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading > pedologists > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > quadruped, > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time > to > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, > it > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > makes > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along > >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the > >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to > walk is > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the > >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a > >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, > discarding > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been > >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having > developed > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the > child > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - > >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around > >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes > and > >>> boards. > >>> > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term > at > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on > this > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > written > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a > >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is > >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> mike > >>> > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > >>> > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > >>> > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >>> > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > >>> > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > >>> > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > >>> > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > >>> > >>>> it, the > >>> > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > >>> > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > >>> > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > >>> > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > >>> > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the > >>> time..... > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > >>> > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > >>> > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > >>> > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > >>> > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > >>> > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > >>> > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > >>> > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > >>> > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > >>> > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > >>> > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > >>> > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > >>> > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > >>> > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > >>> > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > >>> > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > >>> > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > >>> > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > >>> > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > >>> > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > >>> > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > >>> > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > >>> > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > >>> > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > >>> > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > > > > > From andyb@marxists.org Thu Apr 26 21:25:08 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:25:08 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: help with Russian In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <691cb95e-b01f-834a-8335-cdff300bd7fe@marxists.org> David Kellogg sent me a PDF, so I'm OK. I wanted to see if Leontyev used the same words for action, deed, activity, goal and motive which Hegel uses. The answer is he doesn't at all. Certain elements of his theory pick up Hegel's idea and even clarified them a bit where many Hegel scholars are not clear or miss the point altogether. In other respects his theory is inferior to Hegel's as well, I might say. So I think I can discount the possibility that ANL modelled his Activity Theory in any way on Hegel's theory of action. A side issue: the words Hegel uses for action (Handlung), activity (Tatigkeit) and deed (Tat) are the opposite of how these words are used in modern German, e.g. Marx. He uses Tatigkeit for the general substance, not object oriented activity. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 26/04/2018 10:07 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Is there anyone on this list who has a Russian translation > of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and could therefore tell me > the conventional Russian translations of certain German > words Hegel uses. The answers are not obvious, because in > both English and German, the relevant words are used in > ordinary speech to index many different concepts, and vice > versa, the relevant concepts are rendered in ordinary speech > in many different interchangeable words, and on the whole > there is no correspondence between English and German. > > Thank you. > > Andy > > From Peg.Griffin@att.net Thu Apr 26 21:50:03 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 00:50:03 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: <000601d3dde3$35335e70$9f9a1b50$@att.net> Whenever I see the drawing, Mike, I get pulled in by the direction of the arms and of the feet that are poking at the bottom of the gowns. I think I see three psyches in a moment of a little everyday struggle. Not sure how high the psychological functions are though, or even how many we should count them as. The two women seem to be a nice example of distributed cognition with shared goals and impromptu coordinated actions but the little one seems headed in a different direction (to say nothing of a possible fall). The women are already losing in the struggle as far as moving to their preferred location goes! They aren't even looking where they're going. But they are all three on a longer journey toward independent walking for all and both women are looking at the little one who is, after all, the instantiation of that longer term goal, the independent walker whose walking will fade into an unnoticed operation unless troublesome circumstances bring it to the forefront. It certainly is magic and a bit mysterious, so a Zo-ped. And unlike building construction scaffolding, not purpose made for a specific building with a pre-ordained shape and size. Not sure I'd know a construction forest if I came upon one, so... If by "forest" it means to call to mind some entity that is not bespoke and that allows for creative novel outcomes (i.e., our socio-cultural future!), then I'd like to think more about that. Just outside of my seeing right now is something from Luria, too, about "disorganization" of closely related systems. As my notes under the slide suggest, I regularly see in parent-child and teacher-child interactions that the parent or teacher gets messed up when they are acting in the development of the child. For examples: The mother knows verbatim a short book that the baby loves but she messes up the page turning. At the end, when she just read the last page aloud, she turns the page, surprised to see it is the back cover so she ad-libs, "The end." In the middle of the book, she turns a page, glances at the writing and then tries to "unstick" two pages as if she had skipped a page. Each time she has a small laugh at/with herself when she recognizes she was wrong. Peg -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter might call that a zone of nearest development! Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) mike On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are or > are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is essential > and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts to > get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > Peg > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend quite a > bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a phenomenon I > find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting to > walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a > child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not > yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone, > the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler will > head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to > be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? > > Martin > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > Peter, et. al. > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes > to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most > adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That > would be endangerment in a court of law. > > Henry > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> > >> Thanks Peter! > >> Mike > >> > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > wrote: > >> > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me > the > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner > did. > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a > >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the > >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I > >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of > >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive, > >>> man,1930, p. 202). > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> And this is the text: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his > >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the > >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of > >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading > pedologists > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > quadruped, > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some time > to > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however, > it > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > makes > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along > >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling the > >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to > walk is > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the > >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a > >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, > discarding > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been > >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having > developed > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the > child > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - > >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around > >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes > and > >>> boards. > >>> > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term > at > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on > this > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > written > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a > >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is > >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> mike > >>> > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) :-) > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > >>> > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > >>> > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >>> > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > >>> > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > >>> > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > >>> > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call > >>> > >>>> it, the > >>> > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > >>> > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that > >>> > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > >>> > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these > >>> > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the > >>> time..... > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of > >>> > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding, > >>> > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > >>> > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > >>> > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > >>> > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > >>> > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > >>> > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > >>> > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > >>> > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity > >>> > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > >>> > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > >>> > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But > >>> > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > >>> > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > >>> > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > >>> > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > >>> > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs > >>> > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual > >>> > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > >>> > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > >>> > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > >>> > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > >>> > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the > >>> > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > > > > > From a.j.gil@iped.uio.no Thu Apr 26 23:32:43 2018 From: a.j.gil@iped.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:32:43 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: help with Russian In-Reply-To: <691cb95e-b01f-834a-8335-cdff300bd7fe@marxists.org> References: , <691cb95e-b01f-834a-8335-cdff300bd7fe@marxists.org> Message-ID: <1524810763375.94907@iped.uio.no> That was really interesting Andy, thanks for sharing your findings! Alfredo ________________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden Sent: 27 April 2018 06:25 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: help with Russian David Kellogg sent me a PDF, so I'm OK. I wanted to see if Leontyev used the same words for action, deed, activity, goal and motive which Hegel uses. The answer is he doesn't at all. Certain elements of his theory pick up Hegel's idea and even clarified them a bit where many Hegel scholars are not clear or miss the point altogether. In other respects his theory is inferior to Hegel's as well, I might say. So I think I can discount the possibility that ANL modelled his Activity Theory in any way on Hegel's theory of action. A side issue: the words Hegel uses for action (Handlung), activity (Tatigkeit) and deed (Tat) are the opposite of how these words are used in modern German, e.g. Marx. He uses Tatigkeit for the general substance, not object oriented activity. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 26/04/2018 10:07 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > Is there anyone on this list who has a Russian translation > of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and could therefore tell me > the conventional Russian translations of certain German > words Hegel uses. The answers are not obvious, because in > both English and German, the relevant words are used in > ordinary speech to index many different concepts, and vice > versa, the relevant concepts are rendered in ordinary speech > in many different interchangeable words, and on the whole > there is no correspondence between English and German. > > Thank you. > > Andy > > From dkellogg60@gmail.com Fri Apr 27 02:56:43 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 18:56:43 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: <000601d3dde3$35335e70$9f9a1b50$@att.net> References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> <000601d3dde3$35335e70$9f9a1b50$@att.net> Message-ID: I think the real problem with the scaffolding metaphor is the way we read it, not the way Vygotsky wrote it. We leave out the restructuring of an activity when it is internalized, because we think of the building being built as the only structure. But a forest of bamboo poles and planks is one structure, and the finished building is inside it. So there is a transitional structure, just as there is in a butterfly or a cherry blossom. Compare Peg's exquisite picture with this one, by Millet: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Steps_(Millet).jpg And this one by Van Gogh: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_van_Gogh_-_First_Steps.jpg (Van Gogh did it in hospital just a few months before his death--I think copying Millet was a kind of scaffolding for him....) David Kellogg Sangmyung University Recent Article in *Early Years* The question of questions: Hasan?s critiques, Vygotsky?s crises, and the child?s first interrogatives Free e-print available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 1:50 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > Whenever I see the drawing, Mike, I get pulled in by the direction of the > arms and of the feet that are poking at the bottom of the gowns. > I think I see three psyches in a moment of a little everyday struggle. > Not sure how high the psychological functions are though, or even how many > we should count them as. The two women seem to be a nice example of > distributed cognition with shared goals and impromptu coordinated actions > but the little one seems headed in a different direction (to say nothing of > a possible fall). The women are already losing in the struggle as far as > moving to their preferred location goes! They aren't even looking where > they're going. But they are all three on a longer journey toward > independent walking for all and both women are looking at the little one > who is, after all, the instantiation of that longer term goal, the > independent walker whose walking will fade into an unnoticed operation > unless troublesome circumstances bring it to the forefront. > > It certainly is magic and a bit mysterious, so a Zo-ped. And unlike > building construction scaffolding, not purpose made for a specific building > with a pre-ordained shape and size. Not sure I'd know a construction > forest if I came upon one, so... If by "forest" it means to call to mind > some entity that is not bespoke and that allows for creative novel outcomes > (i.e., our socio-cultural future!), then I'd like to think more about that. > > Just outside of my seeing right now is something from Luria, too, about > "disorganization" of closely related systems. As my notes under the slide > suggest, I regularly see in parent-child and teacher-child interactions > that the parent or teacher gets messed up when they are acting in the > development of the child. For examples: The mother knows verbatim a short > book that the baby loves but she messes up the page turning. At the end, > when she just read the last page aloud, she turns the page, surprised to > see it is the back cover so she ad-libs, "The end." In the middle of the > book, she turns a page, glances at the writing and then tries to "unstick" > two pages as if she had skipped a page. Each time she has a small laugh > at/with herself when she recognizes she was wrong. > > Peg > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, > Peter might call that a zone of nearest development! > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > mike > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are or > > are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is > essential > > and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts to > > get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > > Peg > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend quite > a > > bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a phenomenon > I > > find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting > to > > walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a > > child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is > not > > yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone, > > the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler > will > > head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need > to > > be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? > > > > Martin > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is making > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else comes > > to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. > Most > > adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That > > would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > Henry > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > >> > > >> Thanks Peter! > > >> Mike > > >> > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > >> > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent > me > > the > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner > > did. > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > involves a > > >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less > the > > >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where > I > > >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of > > >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, > primitive, > > >>> man,1930, p. 202). > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> And this is the text: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his > > >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in > the > > >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of > > >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading > > pedologists > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > > quadruped, > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some > time > > to > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > however, > > it > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > > makes > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way > along > > >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, pulling > the > > >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to > > walk is > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the > > >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > Within a > > >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding, > > discarding > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been > > >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having > > developed > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the > > child > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? - > > >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > around > > >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes > > and > > >>> boards. > > >>> > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very > term > > at > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on > > this > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > > written > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for > a > > >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is > > >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> mike > > >>> > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) > :-) > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > >>> > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > >>> > > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > > >>> > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > >>> > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > >>> > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right > > >>> > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now > call > > >>> > > >>>> it, the > > >>> > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > >>> > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me > that > > >>> > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > >>> > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study > these > > >>> > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have > the > > >>> time..... > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice > of > > >>> > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > scaffolding, > > >>> > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > >>> > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > > >>> > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point > > >>> > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as > > >>> > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I > > >>> > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > >>> > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with > > >>> > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > specificity > > >>> > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > >>> > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was > > >>> > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > But > > >>> > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because > > >>> > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > >>> > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will > > >>> > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and > > >>> > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, > needs > > >>> > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring > mutual > > >>> > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know > > >>> > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, > don't. > > >>> > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the > > >>> > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually > > >>> > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on > the > > >>> > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > From smago@uga.edu Fri Apr 27 03:41:17 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 10:41:17 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher mental process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite different from a yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a cultural purpose. There's more to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at work when learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by surroundings both physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and participation in a community of practice. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter might call that a zone of nearest development! Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) mike On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are > or are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is > essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts > to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > Peg > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend > quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a > phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support > while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults > will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as > balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the > child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction > that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby called an ?external ego.? > > Martin > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > Peter, et. al. > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > making > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else > comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious > injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk > such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > Henry > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > >> > >> Thanks Peter! > >> Mike > >> > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > wrote: > >> > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > >>> sent me > the > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > >>> Bruner > did. > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be > >>> more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in > >>> chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> And this is the text: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as > >>> his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the > >>> ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally > >>> innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of > >>> the leading > pedologists > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > quadruped, > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some > >>> time > to > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > >>> however, > it > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > makes > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way > >>> along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, > >>> pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, > >>> his ability to > walk is > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by > >>> the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > >>> scaffolding, > discarding > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now > >>> been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. > >>> Having > developed > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, > >>> the > child > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -----Original Message----- > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > >>> "forest" of pipes > and > >>> boards. > >>> > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very > >>> term > at > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts > >>> on > this > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > written > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case > >>> for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If > >>> there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> mike > >>> > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) > >>> :-) > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > >>> > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > >>> > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > >>> > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > >>> > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > >>> > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite > >>>> right > >>> > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now > >>>> call > >>> > >>>> it, the > >>> > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > >>> > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me > >>>> that > >>> > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > >>> > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study > >>>> these > >>> > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have > >>>> the > >>> time..... > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > >>>> choice of > >>> > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > >>>> scaffolding, > >>> > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > >>> > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > >>> > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its > >>>> point > >>> > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least > >>>> as > >>> > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever > >>>> I > >>> > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past > >>>> the > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > >>> > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity > >>>> with > >>> > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > >>>> specificity > >>> > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > >>> > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial > >>>> was > >>> > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > >>>> But > >>> > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > >>>> because > >>> > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > >>>> that > >>> > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > >>> > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner > >>>> will > >>> > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product > >>>> and > >>> > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, > >>>> needs > >>> > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring > >>>> mutual > >>> > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers > >>>> know > >>> > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't. > >>> > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving > >>>> the > >>> > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > >>>> actually > >>> > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching > >>>> on the > >>> > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > >>> > >>>> > >>> > > > > > From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Fri Apr 27 03:59:24 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:59:24 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: Yes, HMF as something discrete is a red herring (and more a result of construing it in a categorical fashion). Better to consider it as a conjoining perspective. The chalk drawing is nicely evocative of different perspectives at play (what I call active orientation because 'perspective' and 'goal' connote conscious functions in English). I am working on a technical account of it all, and so have some confidence in my assertions. Best, Huw On 27 April 2018 at 11:41, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher mental > process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite different from a > yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a cultural purpose. There's more > to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at work when > learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by surroundings both > physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and participation in > a community of practice. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter might > call that a zone of nearest development! > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > mike > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are > > or are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is > > essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts > > to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > > Peg > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend > > quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a > > phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support > > while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults > > will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as > > balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the > > child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more > > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction > > that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby > called an ?external ego.? > > > > Martin > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > > making > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else > > comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious > > injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk > > such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > Henry > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > >> > > >> Thanks Peter! > > >> Mike > > >> > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > >> > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > > >>> sent me > > the > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > > >>> Bruner > > did. > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be > > >>> more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in > > >>> chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> And this is the text: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as > > >>> his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the > > >>> ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally > > >>> innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of > > >>> the leading > > pedologists > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > > quadruped, > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some > > >>> time > > to > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > > >>> however, > > it > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > > makes > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way > > >>> along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, > > >>> pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, > > >>> his ability to > > walk is > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by > > >>> the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > > >>> scaffolding, > > discarding > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now > > >>> been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. > > >>> Having > > developed > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, > > >>> the > > child > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? > > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > > >>> "forest" of pipes > > and > > >>> boards. > > >>> > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very > > >>> term > > at > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts > > >>> on > > this > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > > written > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case > > >>> for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If > > >>> there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his > papers. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> mike > > >>> > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) > > >>> :-) > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > >>> > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > >>> > > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > > >>> > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > >>> > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > >>> > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite > > >>>> right > > >>> > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now > > >>>> call > > >>> > > >>>> it, the > > >>> > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > >>> > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me > > >>>> that > > >>> > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > >>> > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study > > >>>> these > > >>> > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have > > >>>> the > > >>> time..... > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > > >>>> choice of > > >>> > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > > >>>> scaffolding, > > >>> > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > >>> > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > > >>> > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its > > >>>> point > > >>> > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least > > >>>> as > > >>> > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever > > >>>> I > > >>> > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past > > >>>> the > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > >>> > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity > > >>>> with > > >>> > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > > >>>> specificity > > >>> > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > >>> > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial > > >>>> was > > >>> > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > > >>>> But > > >>> > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > > >>>> because > > >>> > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > > >>>> that > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > >>> > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner > > >>>> will > > >>> > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product > > >>>> and > > >>> > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, > > >>>> needs > > >>> > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring > > >>>> mutual > > >>> > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers > > >>>> know > > >>> > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, > don't. > > >>> > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving > > >>>> the > > >>> > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > > >>>> actually > > >>> > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching > > >>>> on the > > >>> > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > From Peg.Griffin@att.net Fri Apr 27 07:35:16 2018 From: Peg.Griffin@att.net (Peg Griffin) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 10:35:16 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: <001f01d3de34$f6280580$e2781080$@att.net> The Rembrandt drawing attachment didn't come through for Peter S. so I sent it off line. In case that doesn't work or if the same problem occurs for others, here's a link to the British Museum entry: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/publications/online_research_catalogues/search_object_details.aspx?objectId=710568&partId=1&catparentPageId=28968&catalogueOnly=true&output=bibliography/!!/OR/!!/5806/!//!/Catalogue%20of%20Drawings%20by%20Rembrandt%20and%20his%20School%20in%20the%20British%20Museum/!//!!//!!!/ Peg PS: Just about the funniest thing I've ever seen in a "curator's comments" section is about one screenful down when talking about related sketches: "... and by the sketches ? presumably not done from life ? at the bottom of the sheet of studies for the 'Entombment' in Amsterdam (Benesch 152)." Is this a mischievous curator managing to sneak something silly in? I like to think it is! -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Huw Lloyd Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 6:59 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter Yes, HMF as something discrete is a red herring (and more a result of construing it in a categorical fashion). Better to consider it as a conjoining perspective. The chalk drawing is nicely evocative of different perspectives at play (what I call active orientation because 'perspective' and 'goal' connote conscious functions in English). I am working on a technical account of it all, and so have some confidence in my assertions. Best, Huw On 27 April 2018 at 11:41, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher mental > process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite different from a > yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a cultural purpose. There's more > to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at work when > learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by surroundings both > physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and participation in > a community of practice. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter might > call that a zone of nearest development! > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > mike > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin wrote: > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are > > or are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is > > essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts > > to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > > Peg > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend > > quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a > > phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support > > while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults > > will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as > > balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the > > child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more > > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction > > that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby > called an ?external ego.? > > > > Martin > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > > making > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else > > comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious > > injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk > > such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > Henry > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > >> > > >> Thanks Peter! > > >> Mike > > >> > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > wrote: > > >> > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > > >>> sent me > > the > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > > >>> Bruner > > did. > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be > > >>> more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in > > >>> chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> And this is the text: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as > > >>> his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the > > >>> ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally > > >>> innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of > > >>> the leading > > pedologists > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > > quadruped, > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some > > >>> time > > to > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > > >>> however, > > it > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > > makes > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way > > >>> along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, > > >>> pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, > > >>> his ability to > > walk is > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by > > >>> the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > > >>> scaffolding, > > discarding > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now > > >>> been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. > > >>> Having > > developed > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, > > >>> the > > child > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? > > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > > >>> "forest" of pipes > > and > > >>> boards. > > >>> > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very > > >>> term > > at > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts > > >>> on > > this > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > > written > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case > > >>> for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If > > >>> there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his > papers. > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> mike > > >>> > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) > > >>> :-) > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > >>> > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > >>> > > >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p > > >>> > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > >>> > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > >>> > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite > > >>>> right > > >>> > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now > > >>>> call > > >>> > > >>>> it, the > > >>> > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > >>> > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me > > >>>> that > > >>> > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > >>> > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study > > >>>> these > > >>> > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have > > >>>> the > > >>> time..... > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > > >>>> choice of > > >>> > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > > >>>> scaffolding, > > >>> > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > >>> > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it. > > >>> > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its > > >>>> point > > >>> > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least > > >>>> as > > >>> > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever > > >>>> I > > >>> > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past > > >>>> the > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > >>> > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity > > >>>> with > > >>> > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > > >>>> specificity > > >>> > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > >>> > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial > > >>>> was > > >>> > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > > >>>> But > > >>> > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > > >>>> because > > >>> > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > > >>>> that > > >>> > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > >>> > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner > > >>>> will > > >>> > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product > > >>>> and > > >>> > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, > > >>>> needs > > >>> > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring > > >>>> mutual > > >>> > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers > > >>>> know > > >>> > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, > don't. > > >>> > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving > > >>>> the > > >>> > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > > >>>> actually > > >>> > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching > > >>>> on the > > >>> > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > >>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > From pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu Fri Apr 27 09:44:16 2018 From: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu (Peter Feigenbaum [Staff]) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 12:44:16 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: What I'm about to suggest may seem far afield of the discussion that has taken place on this particular topic thus far, but the thought was triggered by Huw's mention of perspective-taking. Whenever I think about teaching and learning, I can't help but conjure up the ideas revealed by Arthur Reber's work on *implicit* learning. In contrast to didactic teaching - in this case, the conscious efforts and aims of the caregivers to teach the child to walk - there is the child's own unconscious efforts to understand the activity in which she is engaged. These two forms of cognition, one conscious and the other unconscious, are apparently at odds with one another. Reber considers implicit learning as "knowledge [that] is optimally acquired independently of conscious efforts to learn." Interestingly, when children and adults in his experiments were asked to divulge what they were thinking while they were engaged in a task involving implicit learning (such as learning the rules of an artificial grammar), they were largely unable to do so, and their task performance simultaneously suffered. For my part, I believe that both of these cognitive processes and perspectives are operative in social situations involving teaching and learning. Perhaps others would find it useful to consider these competing forms of learning when thinking about the zoped (or should I say zoned?). Sorry if this idea is a distraction! Peter F On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 6:59 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Yes, HMF as something discrete is a red herring (and more a result of > construing it in a categorical fashion). Better to consider it as a > conjoining perspective. The chalk drawing is nicely evocative of different > perspectives at play (what I call active orientation because 'perspective' > and 'goal' connote conscious functions in English). I am working on a > technical account of it all, and so have some confidence in my assertions. > > Best, > Huw > > > > On 27 April 2018 at 11:41, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > > But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher mental > > process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite different from a > > yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a cultural purpose. There's > more > > to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at work > when > > learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by surroundings > both > > physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and participation > in > > a community of practice. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter > might > > call that a zone of nearest development! > > > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > > > mike > > > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin > wrote: > > > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who are > > > or are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite > > > convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is > > > essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts > > > to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > > > Peg > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those > > > rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I spend > > > quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it?s a > > > phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support > > > while starting to walk is quite different from the ways that adults > > > will actively help a child to walk, performing functions, such as > > > balance, that the child is not yet capable of alone. Then, when the > > > child *is* capable of walking alone, the adults have to be even more > > > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any direction > > > that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what I think Bowlby > > called an ?external ego.? > > > > > > Martin > > > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: > > > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > > > making > > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something else > > > comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious > > > injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk > > > such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > > Henry > > > > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > >> > > > >> Thanks Peter! > > > >> Mike > > > >> > > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > > wrote: > > > >> > > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > > > >>> sent me > > > the > > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > > > >>> Bruner > > > did. > > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > > > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might be > > > >>> more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > > > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in > > > >>> chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > > > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> And this is the text: > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as > > > >>> his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the > > > >>> ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally > > > >>> innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of > > > >>> the leading > > > pedologists > > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small > > > quadruped, > > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for some > > > >>> time > > > to > > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > > > >>> however, > > > it > > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The > > > >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child > > > makes > > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way > > > >>> along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a chair, > > > >>> pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, > > > >>> his ability to > > > walk is > > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by > > > >>> the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > > > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > > > >>> scaffolding, > > > discarding > > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now > > > >>> been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. > > > >>> Having > > > developed > > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, > > > >>> the > > > child > > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but > > > >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? ???? > > > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > > > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > > > >>> "forest" of pipes > > > and > > > >>> boards. > > > >>> > > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very > > > >>> term > > > at > > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts > > > >>> on > > > this > > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has > > > written > > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case > > > >>> for a broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If > > > >>> there is interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his > > papers. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> mike > > > >>> > > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped) > > > >>> :-) > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > > >>> > > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > > >>> > > > >>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www. > researchgate.net_p&d=DwIFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURk > cqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m= > A0pLAA7WgwdNaLaEVN98QsUJr8_J2xw1Bxg5KM9ej2s&s= > WSjaQM3CNl982j1B7mkB8BvsZuf0uca_3zOIioVDXkM&e= > > > >>> > > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > > >>> > > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > > >>> > > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite > > > >>>> right > > > >>> > > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now > > > >>>> call > > > >>> > > > >>>> it, the > > > >>> > > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to > > > >>> > > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me > > > >>>> that > > > >>> > > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > > >>> > > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study > > > >>>> these > > > >>> > > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have > > > >>>> the > > > >>> time..... > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > > > >>>> choice of > > > >>> > > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > > > >>>> scaffolding, > > > >>> > > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is > > > >>> > > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on > it. > > > >>> > > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > > >>> > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its > > > >>>> point > > > >>> > > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least > > > >>>> as > > > >>> > > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever > > > >>>> I > > > >>> > > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past > > > >>>> the > > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today, > > > >>> > > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity > > > >>>> with > > > >>> > > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > > > >>>> specificity > > > >>> > > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with > > > >>> > > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial > > > >>>> was > > > >>> > > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > > > >>>> But > > > >>> > > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > > > >>>> because > > > >>> > > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > > > >>>> that > > > >>> > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a > > > >>> > > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner > > > >>>> will > > > >>> > > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product > > > >>>> and > > > >>> > > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, > > > >>>> needs > > > >>> > > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring > > > >>>> mutual > > > >>> > > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers > > > >>>> know > > > >>> > > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, > > don't. > > > >>> > > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving > > > >>>> the > > > >>> > > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > > > >>>> actually > > > >>> > > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching > > > >>>> on the > > > >>> > > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit > > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. Director, Office of Institutional Research Fordham University Thebaud Hall-202 Bronx, NY 10458 Phone: (718) 817-2243 Fax: (718) 817-3817 email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu From smago@uga.edu Fri Apr 27 09:55:20 2018 From: smago@uga.edu (Peter Smagorinsky) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 16:55:20 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: Just a note, in response to the various generous messages sent on this topic, that my article is really about pedagogical misapplications of scaffolding as Vygotskian, with scaffolding understood ONLY in Bruner's sense of explicit guidance today for tomorrow's independent learning for the purposes of that argument. My field is education, and in the teaching and learning literature, people are making this reference clearly without having bothering to read much, and often without having read LSV or Bruner directly at all. Ed psych textbooks reduce LSV to the most limited sense of the ZPD and to scaffolding, both wrong in my view, yet now a truism that may be repeated and referenced in the absence of engagement with the ideas, often to justify just about any teaching approach as Vygotskian. So my attention was solely on how educators who haven't read LSV have reduced him to something that I find at best tangential to his cultural-historical developmental project. The rest is interesting, I just want to clarify that I had a very specific purpose and readership for the article, not a comprehensive one. -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 12:44 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter What I'm about to suggest may seem far afield of the discussion that has taken place on this particular topic thus far, but the thought was triggered by Huw's mention of perspective-taking. Whenever I think about teaching and learning, I can't help but conjure up the ideas revealed by Arthur Reber's work on *implicit* learning. In contrast to didactic teaching - in this case, the conscious efforts and aims of the caregivers to teach the child to walk - there is the child's own unconscious efforts to understand the activity in which she is engaged. These two forms of cognition, one conscious and the other unconscious, are apparently at odds with one another. Reber considers implicit learning as "knowledge [that] is optimally acquired independently of conscious efforts to learn." Interestingly, when children and adults in his experiments were asked to divulge what they were thinking while they were engaged in a task involving implicit learning (such as learning the rules of an artificial grammar), they were largely unable to do so, and their task performance simultaneously suffered. For my part, I believe that both of these cognitive processes and perspectives are operative in social situations involving teaching and learning. Perhaps others would find it useful to consider these competing forms of learning when thinking about the zoped (or should I say zoned?). Sorry if this idea is a distraction! Peter F On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 6:59 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Yes, HMF as something discrete is a red herring (and more a result of > construing it in a categorical fashion). Better to consider it as a > conjoining perspective. The chalk drawing is nicely evocative of > different perspectives at play (what I call active orientation because 'perspective' > and 'goal' connote conscious functions in English). I am working on a > technical account of it all, and so have some confidence in my assertions. > > Best, > Huw > > > > On 27 April 2018 at 11:41, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > > But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher > > mental process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite > > different from a yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a > > cultural purpose. There's > more > > to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at > > work > when > > learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by > > surroundings > both > > physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and > > participation > in > > a community of practice. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter > might > > call that a zone of nearest development! > > > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > > > mike > > > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin > wrote: > > > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who > > > are or are planning to teach young children, especially if they > > > are quite convinced that modeling the correct language or other > > > behavior is essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my > > > attempts to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints. > > > Peg > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of > > > those rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I > > > spend quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, > > > because it?s a phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using > > > a table for support while starting to walk is quite different from > > > the ways that adults will actively help a child to walk, > > > performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not yet > > > capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking > > > alone, the adults have to be even more > > > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any > > > direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what > > > I think Bowlby > > called an ?external ego.? > > > > > > Martin > > > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: > > > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > > > making > > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something > > > else comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of > > > serious injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the > > > child risk such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > > Henry > > > > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > >> > > > >> Thanks Peter! > > > >> Mike > > > >> > > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > > >> > > > wrote: > > > >> > > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > > > >>> sent me > > > the > > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > > > >>> Bruner > > > did. > > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > > > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might > > > >>> be more or less the same, but the concept seems very different to me. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > > > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor > > > >>> in chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > > > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> And this is the text: > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon > > > >>> as his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on > > > >>> the ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a > > > >>> naturally innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; > > > >>> indeed one of the leading > > > pedologists > > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a > > > >>> small > > > quadruped, > > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for > > > >>> some time > > > to > > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > > > >>> however, > > > it > > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. > > > >>> The transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first > > > >>> the child > > > makes > > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his > > > >>> way along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a > > > >>> chair, pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. > > > >>> In a word, his ability to > > > walk is > > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, > > > >>> by the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. > > > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > > > >>> scaffolding, > > > discarding > > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have > > > >>> now been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. > > > >>> Having > > > developed > > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of > > > >>> movement, the > > > child > > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, > > > >>> but emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? > > > >>> ???? > > > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > > > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > > > >>> "forest" of pipes > > > and > > > >>> boards. > > > >>> > > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this > > > >>> very term > > > at > > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna > > > >>> Shvarts on > > > this > > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur > > > >>> has > > > written > > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a > > > >>> case for a broad use of the term that converges very closely > > > >>> with. If there is interest here, let me know, and i can post > > > >>> one of his > > papers. > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> mike > > > >>> > > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a > > > >>> zoped) > > > >>> :-) > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > > >>> > > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > > >>> > > > >>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www. > researchgate.net_p&d=DwIFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURk > cqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m= > A0pLAA7WgwdNaLaEVN98QsUJr8_J2xw1Bxg5KM9ej2s&s= > WSjaQM3CNl982j1B7mkB8BvsZuf0uca_3zOIioVDXkM&e= > > > >>> > > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > > >>> > > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > > >>> > > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not > > > >>>> quite right > > > >>> > > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall > > > >>>> now call > > > >>> > > > >>>> it, the > > > >>> > > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise > > > >>>> to > > > >>> > > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells > > > >>>> me that > > > >>> > > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > > >>> > > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to > > > >>>> study these > > > >>> > > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not > > > >>>> have the > > > >>> time..... > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > > > >>>> choice of > > > >>> > > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > > > >>>> scaffolding, > > > >>> > > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It > > > >>>> is > > > >>> > > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker > > > >>>> on > it. > > > >>> > > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > > >>> > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that > > > >>>> its point > > > >>> > > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at > > > >>>> least as > > > >>> > > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, > > > >>>> whenever I > > > >>> > > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get > > > >>>> past the > > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the > > > >>>> "assisted-learning-today, > > > >>> > > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just > > > >>>> popularity with > > > >>> > > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > > > >>>> specificity > > > >>> > > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular > > > >>>> with > > > >>> > > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being > > > >>>> crucial was > > > >>> > > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. > > > >>>> But > > > >>> > > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > > > >>>> because > > > >>> > > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > > > >>>> that > > > >>> > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written > > > >>>> into a > > > >>> > > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and > > > >>>> learner will > > > >>> > > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over > > > >>>> product and > > > >>> > > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, > > > >>>> then, needs > > > >>> > > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one > > > >>>> requiring mutual > > > >>> > > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." > > > >>>> Teachers know > > > >>> > > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this > > > >>>> country, > > don't. > > > >>> > > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into > > > >>>> achieving the > > > >>> > > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > > > >>>> actually > > > >>> > > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good > > > >>>> teaching on the > > > >>> > > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal > > > >>>> audit > > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > > >>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. Director, Office of Institutional Research Fordham University Thebaud Hall-202 Bronx, NY 10458 Phone: (718) 817-2243 Fax: (718) 817-3817 email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Fri Apr 27 10:03:04 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 11:03:04 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter In-Reply-To: References: <3E04B805-367A-4910-B329-5BBDD1C61A10@gmail.com> <30EB7CCD-62D7-4C1F-92E3-B1BA47937A50@cantab.net> <009a01d3ddc1$0abf9270$203eb750$@att.net> Message-ID: David, The Millet/Van Gogh versions seem to also include something that is less explicit in the Rembrandt and which seems critical but perhaps left out of the scaffolding metaphor, namely, motivation. What is it that the building (or walking child) is reaching for? Without some motivation to build(/walk), no amount of scaffolding will be of any use. -greg p.s. I wonder why Millet/Van Gogh have the father as the motivation. I would have thought it more effective the other way 'round. On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 10:55 AM, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > Just a note, in response to the various generous messages sent on this > topic, that my article is really about pedagogical misapplications of > scaffolding as Vygotskian, with scaffolding understood ONLY in Bruner's > sense of explicit guidance today for tomorrow's independent learning for > the purposes of that argument. My field is education, and in the teaching > and learning literature, people are making this reference clearly without > having bothering to read much, and often without having read LSV or Bruner > directly at all. Ed psych textbooks reduce LSV to the most limited sense of > the ZPD and to scaffolding, both wrong in my view, yet now a truism that > may be repeated and referenced in the absence of engagement with the ideas, > often to justify just about any teaching approach as Vygotskian. So my > attention was solely on how educators who haven't read LSV have reduced him > to something that I find at best tangential to his cultural-historical > developmental project. The rest is interesting, I just want to clarify that > I had a very specific purpose and readership for the article, not a > comprehensive one. > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Feigenbaum [Staff] > Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 12:44 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > What I'm about to suggest may seem far afield of the discussion that has > taken place on this particular topic thus far, but the thought was > triggered by Huw's mention of perspective-taking. > > Whenever I think about teaching and learning, I can't help but conjure up > the ideas revealed by Arthur Reber's work on *implicit* learning. In > contrast to didactic teaching - in this case, the conscious efforts and > aims of the caregivers to teach the child to walk - there is the child's > own unconscious efforts to understand the activity in which she is engaged. > These two forms > of cognition, one conscious and the other unconscious, are apparently at > odds with one another. > > Reber considers implicit learning as "knowledge [that] is optimally > acquired independently of conscious efforts to learn." Interestingly, when > children and adults in his experiments were asked to divulge what they were > thinking while they were engaged in a task involving implicit learning > (such as learning the rules of an artificial grammar), they were largely > unable to do so, and their task performance simultaneously suffered. > > For my part, I believe that both of these cognitive processes and > perspectives are operative in social situations involving teaching and > learning. Perhaps others would find it useful to consider these competing > forms of learning when thinking about the zoped (or should I say zoned?). > > Sorry if this idea is a distraction! > > Peter F > > > > > > On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 6:59 AM, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > Yes, HMF as something discrete is a red herring (and more a result of > > construing it in a categorical fashion). Better to consider it as a > > conjoining perspective. The chalk drawing is nicely evocative of > > different perspectives at play (what I call active orientation because > 'perspective' > > and 'goal' connote conscious functions in English). I am working on a > > technical account of it all, and so have some confidence in my > assertions. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > On 27 April 2018 at 11:41, Peter Smagorinsky wrote: > > > > > But I suspect that walking can play a role in developing a higher > > > mental process (psych function). A hunter walks in a way quite > > > different from a yuppie doing a power walk, and each serves a > > > cultural purpose. There's > > more > > > to the walk than just walking, I think. So yes, I do see a ZND at > > > work > > when > > > learning how to walk in a goal-directed way, mediated by > > > surroundings > > both > > > physical and psychological, that allow for entry into and > > > participation > > in > > > a community of practice. > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 10:59 PM > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > > > Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg, Peter > > might > > > call that a zone of nearest development! > > > > > > Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest. :-) > > > > > > mike > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin > > wrote: > > > > > > > Apropos of Martin's observation of walking: Here is a slide of a > > > > Rembrandt drawing. I use it when starting to work with people who > > > > are or are planning to teach young children, especially if they > > > > are quite convinced that modeling the correct language or other > > > > behavior is essential and pretty much all that is essentially needed. > > > > There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my > > > > attempts to get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them > viewpoints. > > > > Peg > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ > > > > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer > > > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM > > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > > > > > I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of > > > > those rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn?t have it quite right. I > > > > spend quite a bit of time watching kids walking with adults, > > > > because it?s a phenomenon I find quite fascinating. A child using > > > > a table for support while starting to walk is quite different from > > > > the ways that adults will actively help a child to walk, > > > > performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not yet > > > > capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking > > > > alone, the adults have to be even more > > > > active: everyone knows that a toddler will head off in any > > > > direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to be what > > > > I think Bowlby > > > called an ?external ego.? > > > > > > > > Martin > > > > > > > > > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD > > wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Peter, et. al. > > > > > In the text from Vygotsky, the ?external objects? the child is > > > > > making > > > > use of might be an ?affordance? as per J.J. Gibson? Something > > > > else comes to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of > > > > serious injury. Most adults would probably not knowingly let the > > > > child risk such injury. That would be endangerment in a court of law. > > > > > Henry > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole wrote: > > > > >> > > > > >> Thanks Peter! > > > > >> Mike > > > > >> > > > > >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky > > > > >> > > > > wrote: > > > > >> > > > > >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene > > > > >>> sent me > > > > the > > > > >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as > > > > >>> Bruner > > > > did. > > > > >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather > > > > >>> involves a child's use of available supports. The words might > > > > >>> be more or less the same, but the concept seems very different > to me. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), > > > > >>> where I observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor > > > > >>> in chapter 3 of Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of > > > > >>> behaviour: Ape, primitive, man,1930, p. 202). > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> And this is the text: > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon > > > > >>> as his muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on > > > > >>> the ground in the same primitive manner as animals, using a > > > > >>> naturally innate mode of locomotion. He crawls on all fours; > > > > >>> indeed one of the leading > > > > pedologists > > > > >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a > > > > >>> small > > > > quadruped, > > > > >>> rather like an ?ape-like cat?. [39]That animal continues for > > > > >>> some time > > > > to > > > > >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, > > > > >>> however, > > > > it > > > > >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. > > > > >>> The transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first > > > > >>> the child > > > > makes > > > > >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his > > > > >>> way along holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult?s hand, a > > > > >>> chair, pulling the chair along behind him and leaning on it. > > > > >>> In a word, his ability to > > > > walk is > > > > >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, > > > > >>> by the scaffolding of those external tools with which it was > created. > > > > >>> Within a month or two, however, the child grows out of that > > > > >>> scaffolding, > > > > discarding > > > > >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have > > > > >>> now been replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic > processes. > > > > >>> Having > > > > developed > > > > >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of > > > > >>> movement, the > > > > child > > > > >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> -----Original Message----- > > > > >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto: > > > > >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole > > > > >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM > > > > >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > > > >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, > > > > >>> but emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is ???????????? > > > > >>> ???? > > > > >>> - literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" > > > > >>> around public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a > > > > >>> "forest" of pipes > > > > and > > > > >>> boards. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two! > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this > > > > >>> very term > > > > at > > > > >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna > > > > >>> Shvarts on > > > > this > > > > >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur > > > > >>> has > > > > written > > > > >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a > > > > >>> case for a broad use of the term that converges very closely > > > > >>> with. If there is interest here, let me know, and i can post > > > > >>> one of his > > > papers. > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> mike > > > > >>> > > > > >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a > > > > >>> zoped) > > > > >>> :-) > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk > > > >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote: > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding". > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www. > > researchgate.net_p&d=DwIFaQ&c=aqMfXOEvEJQh2iQMCb7Wy8l0sPnURk > > cqADc2guUW8IM&r=mXj3yhpYNklTxyN3KioIJ0ECmPHilpf4N2p9PBMATWs&m= > > A0pLAA7WgwdNaLaEVN98QsUJr8_J2xw1Bxg5KM9ej2s&s= > > WSjaQM3CNl982j1B7mkB8BvsZuf0uca_3zOIioVDXkM&e= > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_ > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not > > > > >>>> quite right > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall > > > > >>>> now call > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> it, the > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise > > > > >>>> to > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells > > > > >>>> me that > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to > > > > >>>> study these > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not > > > > >>>> have the > > > > >>> time..... > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the > article. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad > > > > >>>> choice of > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of > > > > >>>> scaffolding, > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It > > > > >>>> is > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker > > > > >>>> on > > it. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that > > > > >>>> its point > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at > > > > >>>> least as > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, > > > > >>>> whenever I > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get > > > > >>>> past the > > > > >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the > > > > >>>> "assisted-learning-today, > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just > > > > >>>> popularity with > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial > > > > >>>> specificity > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular > > > > >>>> with > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being > > > > >>>> crucial was > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, > dammit. > > > > >>>> But > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out > > > > >>>> because > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming > > > > >>>> that > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written > > > > >>>> into a > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and > > > > >>>> learner will > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over > > > > >>>> product and > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, > > > > >>>> then, needs > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one > > > > >>>> requiring mutual > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." > > > > >>>> Teachers know > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this > > > > >>>> country, > > > don't. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into > > > > >>>> achieving the > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is > > > > >>>> actually > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good > > > > >>>> teaching on the > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal > > > > >>>> audit > > > > >>> culture, becomes ever more stark. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> I hope I am making sense. > > > > >>> > > > > >>>> > > > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D. > Director, > Office of Institutional Research > > Fordham University > Thebaud Hall-202 > Bronx, NY 10458 > > Phone: (718) 817-2243 > Fax: (718) 817-3817 > email: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson