[Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter

[mike cole]

Thanks Peter!
Mike

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> 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 <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> 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 строительные леса  -
> 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<mailto:
> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk<mailto:
> 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.
>
> >
>