[Xmca-l] Re: A Presidential Zoped!!

[Peg Griffin]

This gives me a few things to think about when assessing a person with respect to a task:
Whether in a Zo-ped model or not, we recognize that  "not doing it" is of a different order than both "can't" and "won't."
Whether in a Zo-ped or not, we have to determine which task the person is doing -- just because we provide materials and a task demand/expectation, we cannot be sure the person of interest has the same goal and task that we expect, right?  Any operation or action is relentlessly ambiguous -- capable of constructing/being constructed by/within many different activities/projects that co-exist in time and space, right? So the person may not be anywhere near the task we think is going on or that we are trying to engineer or implement.  (And, needless to say, any performance could be is or isn't doing it, and not definitively a "can't" or "won't.")

In a Zo-ped, we get more to think about, given those "near peers" and "adults" co-constructing the tasks and responses, as well as the moving arrow of time.  Who are those people who are doing some "it" when the person of interest is not (yet) doing it?  What do they tell us about the set of alternate disambiguating operations/actions/activities-- perhaps the person of interest "can" do (and is doing) something that re-designs or deletes our task so he won't do it, while an accident or a plan makes it seem to us as if he "cannot" or "will not" do the task we think he is doing?  In Fifth dimension types settings, we assume the child is acting on "really effective" motives and as we cooperate in the scene we can instantiate some "merely understood" motives that can coexist with the really effective ones and maybe even merge together so our children and our cultures have a future.
 
In the current case, there's a crowd around (physically or figuratively) when our person of interest receives his ever fewer "briefings" that some assume he cannot understand, but I say, not so fast, is it won't or doesn't or can't?  AND what's the task he's on anyhow?   The list items below is incomplete, no doubt, and begins with a draft motive and include some names.  But, many of the folks and motives are in not-so-loose allegiance to each other.  
1. Saving capitalisim from democracy from (e.g., Mnuchin)
2. Adhering to white supremacy (e.g., Stephen Miller) (BTW, a great sign: "white supremacist" is edited with a caret after the "m" for including "e r" yielding "supreme racist")
3. Promoting more xenophobia (Kelly)
4. Serving misogyny 
5. Preserving enmity and inequity
(the last two, I think, our person of interest might be doing independent of any particular near peers or adults in his sphere.)
 
All I really know is that he is not doing tasks we have set.  Maybe he and his peers can't, maybe they won't, but certainly they aren't.  And so we resist, trying to make really effective what is merely understood.

And it reminds me of a foundation staff member visiting the earliest Fifth Dimension who commented that each and every child was just about always on task. Hee, hee, I thought that's like saying it's raining really hard and people are getting wet.  There are about a gazillion different interesting tasks any child could be on at any given time. Fifth Dimension citizens ruled by the Wizard had "really effective" choices and chances galore so when adults joined in they could get a better idea of what was happening as they cooperated with the children while holding some "merely understood" motives in the stratospshere.

(Clearly I am reflecting (appropriating) LCHC and the readings and discussions we had there!)

Peg

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Bazerman
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 11:27 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: A Presidential Zoped!!

School For Grifters?
School for Scandal?

But of course the best students quickly learn how not to get exposed. So this brings us back to the assessment of the struggling student.
Chuck

On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 4:36 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> Shirley, the President cannot realistically be described as a 
> "student" in any sense of the word.
>
> andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 10/02/2018 11:29 PM, Shirley Franklin wrote:
> > Jon
> > Are you suggesting no potential in students with learning challenges?
> > I didn’t realise the zoped came from Vyogotskys work with “defectology"
> students . I love that.
> > Shirley
> >
> >
> >> On 10 Feb 2018, at 10:31, Jonathan Tudge <jrtudge@uncg.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> Sorry, Chuck, to be contrarian, but doesn't the zoped require that
> there be
> >> some potential?
> >>
> >> Jon
> >>
> >>
> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~
> >>
> >> Jonathan Tudge
> >>
> >> Professor
> >> Office: 155 Stone
> >>
> >> Our work on gratitude: http://morethanthanks.wp.uncg.edu/
> >>
> >> A new book just published: Tudge, J. & Freitas, L. (Eds.) 
> >> Developing gratitude in children and adolescents
> >> <https://www.uncg.edu/hdf/faculty/tudge/books/dev-
> gratitude-in-children-and-adolescents-flyer.pdf>,
> >> Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
> >>
> >> My web site:http://www.uncg.edu/hdf/faculty/tudge
> >>
> >> Mailing address:
> >> 248 Stone Building
> >> Department of Human Development and Family Studies PO Box 26170 The 
> >> University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro, NC 
> >> 27402-6170 USA
> >>
> >> phone (336) 223-6181
> >> fax   (336) 334-5076
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 8:45 PM, Charles Bazerman < 
> >> bazerman@education.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Of course we should remember that zoped has its origins in 
> >>> assessing
> the
> >>> learning potential of special education/defectology students, so I
> couldn't
> >>> imagine anything more appropriate.
> >>> Chuck
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 3:34 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Talk about strange bedfellows......
> >>>>
> >>>> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/dumbed-
> >>>> down-security-briefings-still-too-difficult-for-trump.html
> >>>>
> >>>> for your reading pleasure
> >>>> mike
> >>>>
> >
>
>