[Xmca-l] Re: Teacher Distancing and "Social Distancing"

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hello David,

I'm not sure what the reference to looking inside the TV refers to, but it must mean something to someone, just not me.

I'm not sure about this, but "meatspace" (which I think does deserve scare quotes) is something that one might see on 4chan or reddit. 'Tis a very cynical term. Which is why I prefer IRL.

I'm not seeing the reason for your wording in this context, dealing with the apparent (or unapparent) perezhivanie of ZOOM.

There is no doubt that disruptions are ensuing from the measures taken to "flatten the curve." There are millions without jobs here (and many other places). Lots of people are having their lives made unequal by this pandemic. Not just the kids who have to go to school on ZOOM.

But let me ask. Would it be better to have no school at all or school on ZOOM?

It's easy to "zoom in" and look at details and have a good scare, with quotes or otherwise.

That kind of fear is not useful. Try to focus on what you are FOR, not what you are against.

Then you will win.

Keep your eye on the prize.

Fight harder, and never never never give up.

Kind regards,

Annalisa
________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, May 25, 2020 8:08 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Teacher Distancing and "Social Distancing"


  [EXTERNAL]

Michael, Anthony, Elizabeth--and (of course) Annalisa:

I apologize for changing the threadline title AGAIN. I feel like the five-year-old who is always unscrewing the back of the TV set to see the little people inside; I was very dissatisfied withe the abstract theory on the other line, according to which everything is everything and mediation and unmediation are equally both and I wanted a way of finding the people inside it. I thought the term "meatspace", which Annalisa has heard before, captured that feeling pretty well (and there are also some echoes of a corruscating book review I once read in MCA titled something like "Yer askin' me to believe in sentient MEAT????")

Let's use Michael's categories of "teacher presence" and "social presence" instead, so long as we keep in mind the point that Michael made at the end, that is, the teacher is always present even when the teacher is not present (as when the child is doing homework alone) and the additional point that teacher presence is one kind of social presence. But because presence and absence are (like mediated and unmediated) equally both ungradeable categories, I would prefer to talk about teacher distancing and social distancing. Michael Osterholm has objected to the term social distancing for the same reasons I raised earlier--it's a physical, mechanical distancing that actually creates a higher form of solidarity (and that is why the elements of society which oppose higher forms of solidarity oppose it). So I put "social distancing" in scare quotes. But the teacher distancing is real enough.

Real but not by itself of developmental significance. What worries me is the possibility that we are adding to the kinds of inequalitiees that Annalisa, Henry and Tom are talking about on the other thread. It seems to me that teacher distancing differentially hurts some populations. I disagree that Koreans are more homogeneous than other cultures (in class terms significantly  less so) and I also think that if you were to sit through a lecture in the Korean language without understanding Korean you would not agree that language is the least important aspect of teacher presence. But (to bring these two together) I think that students who are able to focus on language, and on particular kinds of language, are disproportionately enabled in conditions of teacher distancing. This is the issue that dare not speak its name, for when Bernstein tried to raise it he was, as Halliday noted, "driven out of the field".  One of the reasons I wrote the article linked below is that Ruqaiya Hasan was not.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!XwBIBYQACtke5H49bUqEFmWYNHnhAFIkfp-wbT_knamfc_Vjaw3tKGbBGkJzD24z7oM31w$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zce9P2I5M_FZBJKElhGyP20UejX0w$>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!XwBIBYQACtke5H49bUqEFmWYNHnhAFIkfp-wbT_knamfc_Vjaw3tKGbBGkJzD24KwiP_Cg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zce9P2I5M_FZBJKElhGyP026P9-1A$>

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