[Xmca-l] Re: English translation of Pedology of the Adolescent

[David Kellogg]

 Vygotsky himself says that many things that he and his colleagues firmly
believed had to be discarded as errors (Author's Preface to T&S). Vygotsky
is working in a poor country, with a lousy library,and (having done this
myself for most of my life) I can say that this is not conducive to
critical assimilation of the literature from the cutting edge.

So for example in Pedolgy of the Adolescent Chapter Six, Vygotsky has laid
out his reasons for thinking that the "non-coincidence of general-anatomic
maturation and sociocultural maturation" is the contradiction that
characterizes the  Social Situation of Development (he doesn't yet call it
that, though). So he is presenting three reasons for the importance of
sexual maturation to . One is the clear correlation between delayed puberty
and underachievement in schools being reported in the USSR. Another is the
equally clear link between sex hormones and growth spurts.

But the third reason is a set of "rejuvenation" experiments undertaken by
Steinach and perfected by a chap called Voronoff in France. This involved
transplanting tissue from monkey testicles into the scrota of the very
rich, something Vygotsky imagines produces "clear evidence of
rejuvenation". Steinach, who worked with non-human guinea
pigs, was nominated for a Nobel six or seven times (but, significantly,
never got one). Voronoff was apparently popular enough with limp
millionaires to marry a Rumanian princess. But today we we know that
tissues would have been instantaneously rejected by the immune system. Even
at the time, Irving Berlin wrote a rather satirical song for a Marx
brothers movie about it:

Let me take you by the hand

Over to the jungle band

If you're too old for dancing

Get yourself a monkey gland

Go, my little dearie, there's the Darwin theory

Telling me and you

To do the Monkey Doodle Doo

dk

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Book with the Seoul Vygotsky Community

Volume 1 of "Pedology of the Adolescent", 분열과 사랑 (in the Korean language)

http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=148240197


On Sun, Jun 3, 2018 at 9:48 PM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> I heartily endorse the sentiment of the main body of your message,
> Francine. Even the "Primitive man, ...." which was deliberately excluded
> from the CW and contains definite errors, is also wonderfully rich and
> original in other respects. Vygotsky is one of those rare creatures who, in
> his short life produced not one, not two, not three but maybe even four
> original scientific theories. :)
>
>
> In relation to "mental tools" I accept that this is, in itself, a
> perfectly valid idea. But I would prefer it not be used in discussion about
> Vygotsky because it sets up a barrier to understanding Vygotsky's ideas
> about tools and signs.
>
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 3/06/2018 10:38 PM, Larry Smolucha wrote:
>
> Message from Francine:
>
>
> Regarding tools of the mind (to use Budrova and Leong's terminology),
> there are two aspects of tools that haven't been acknowledged in this
> discussion.
>
>
> First: The concept of  'mental tools' is not literally the same as a
> manual tool used on an object, it can be used metaphorically or as a
> broader category of 'tool-usage.'
>
>
> Second: Tools and tool usage can be co-constructed during play or work
> activities.
>
> Tools (and their usage) are not always predetermined cultural artifacts.
> The proper usage of a work tool such as a pair of pliers can be taught in a
> shop class, but this doesn't rule out improvised use of the pliers in a new
> creative way.
>
>
> There is an unfortunate meta-narrative that has accompanied previous new
> publications on Vygotsky's theories that puts forth the new text as 'the'
> new correct view of Vygotsky's works. Every new text is an opportunity to
> raise new questions and open up avenues of research. Instead the new text
> is too often promoted as the definitive text that supercedes previous
> interpretations of Vygotsky's theory. It is ironic that David takes issue
> with Norris Minick's divisions of the development of Vygotsky's thinking in
> Volume One of the CW in English. I disagreed with Minick when he was first
> advocating that Vygotsky's real theory was to be found in Vygoysky's
> writings from 1932-1934 and that Vygotsky's earlier works were of no
> importance [during a graduate seminar at the University of Chicago in
> January 1987]. More recently Yasnitsky (2016) has presented the new
> authoritative 'revisionist' Vygotsky theory.
>
>
> In spite of these attempts to impose a new authoritative revision of
> Vygotsky's theory,
>
> individual practitioners and researchers continue to advance the field
> with what some 'experts' regard as misunderstandings.
>
>
> As David and his colleagues continue their ground breaking work of
> translating yet another Vygotsky text, this could open up a new productive
> dialogue that would carry on through the 21st century. What will Vygotsky's
> theory look like at mid-century or in the late 21st century? Will it have
> fallen on the wayside or thrive?
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Huw Lloyd
> <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, June 1, 2018 10:10 PM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: English translation of Pedology of the Adolescent
>
> Much more than this, David. Consider the number of people that think
> Vygotsky is concerned with "mental tools" and that this constitutes
> development.
>
> On 2 June 2018 at 00:26, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, someone on this list once remarked that a pencil has in coded form
> the history, the function, and even the structure of writing. So a pencil
> is composed of wood and graphite in one historical period and steel and
> lead in another; a pencil has the function of marking paper without marking
> the fingers, and both functions are realized by the structural relationship
> of the paper-marking element to the covering material.
>
> But I think the key word here is "coded"--the first encoding is only
> accessible to the historian, the second to the engineer, and the third is
> accessible, but ulitmately accidental, in the child's own writing. But
> learning the practice of writing is learning a form of knowing, of knowing
> written speech: it's not a form of decoding the history, structure and
> function of pencils. In East Asia we went from bamboo brushes to cell
> phones with only a generation or two at the pencil stage. In learning how
> literacy is taught, it's probably more useful to listen to what teachers
> say than it is to look at what they give the children; it is here that
> the essential knowledge is laid out in its uncoded form.
>
> My wife's experience of pencils at school was very different from that of
> her brother: he was the eldest son and got new pencils, while the first
> time my wife ever used a pencil longer than a stub of a few centimeters she
> was already in college. Her attitude towards new pencils is still almost
> reverent as a result, but I don't think it has had much effect on the way
> she writes. The post-it notes she has left me on this computer seem quite
> irreverent (particularly with regard to my memory capacity).
>
> dk
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Book with the Seoul Vygotsky Community
>
> Volume 1 of "Pedology of the Adolescent", 분열과 사랑 (in the Korean language)
>
> http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=148240197
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 5:03 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Item c in David's enumeration makes an appearance in volume 4, p. 60-63.
> The hankering after "mental tools", in my opinion, is a major
> misapprehension by students of Vygotsky. It confuses development of the
> epistemological basis of knowing and activity with the notion of being
> given a tool! This, in turn, decouples (or ignores) the necessity for
> practices to embody epistemological forms of knowing from cultural
> participation. Culture then becomes some arbitrary set of practices that
> one is indoctrinated into, completely ignoring the necessity for the
> development in ways of knowing. Maybe the full pedology volume will help to
> rectify this.
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
> On 1 June 2018 at 01:21, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
>
> I’m holding my breath...!  :)
>
> Martin
>
>
> On May 30, 2018, at 11:04 PM, Larry Smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> wrote: <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
>
> Message from Francine:
>
> David thank you for the exposition on how  the *Pedology of the
> Adolescent* has come down to us over the years. It should be available in
> English for its centennial (2031).
>
>
> ---George Eliot
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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