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

Fri May 29 00:07:22 PDT 2020

Thanks, David.

So it seems you leave it up to the students as to whether they take a
deeper approach to the subject rather than approach the whole course
developmentally, bluntly: whether you do what you preach.

On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 01:47, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Huw--
>
> Weirdly, the two things are connected. One reason that (unmarried)
> professors were allowed to date their students back in China was that
> grades were rigorously objective and not, in the end, of much consequence:
> everybody was getting an assigned job no matter what.
>
> There was no grading at all in elementary school when I first arrived in
> Korea in 1997. Now there are standardized tests but these are not really
> graded, and it is always emphasized that they are for the purpose of
> evaluating the schools and the teachers and not the children. In middle
> school and high school, grades become extremely important, but not as any
> proxy for interest in subject matter: the government has been trying to
> weaken the grip of the college entrance exam on admissions and one way to
> do this is to allow about two thirds of students into university without
> taking exams, just on the strenght of grades and "performance evaluation"
> (the source of GREAT corruption in Korean society at present.
>
> Me? I am a great believer in grade inflation: during the term I threaten
> the students quite shamelessly and at the end of the term I always give
> students the maximum possible grade, stressing that it is not actually
> connected to achievement or merit or anything except my sincere desire to
> see the end of the grading system as a whole. The students are a little
> taken aback, but they play along. Isn't that what grading is really about?
> To make it a proxy for interest in the subject matter is a little like
> making spelling a procksie for meening.
>
> 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__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZdWAdl4TA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!QKeMr_DxaOhkUyAIQGTY5n09MXur00WJ_UnwYQFU6Ba2jRpc2rjXgX14URtxI8MlPrfn3g$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works* *Volume
> One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZd_eBvbXQ$ 
>
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QKeMr_DxaOhkUyAIQGTY5n09MXur00WJ_UnwYQFU6Ba2jRpc2rjXgX14URtxI8N8ML3yFg$>
>
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 6:24 AM Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> I think you skipped over the attachment to grades as a proxy for interest
>> in the subject. And I am curious whether you do anything about that.
>>
>> Huw
>>
>> On Wed, 27 May 2020 at 22:20, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Spinoza says that passions (in the sense of something you undergo, c.f.
>>> "the passion of the Christ") are feelings that increase or decrease the
>>> capacity of the body for action or the idea of the feeling (!). And, alas,
>>> I just gave you a pretty good example
>>> As Mike points out, there are ways of dealing with the unfair attacks on
>>> Bernstein's legacy that increase the capacity for action many times. These
>>> tend to be based on the idea of the feeling, and you can find a lot of them
>>> in the LCHC autobiography and elsewhere. I think you cannot find them in
>>> the attached article, because I am still undergoing some passion over this:
>>> for me it is hopelessly inter-twined-and-woven with attacks on Ruqaiya
>>> Hasan's legacy and the legacy of Halliday with which I am intellectually
>>> and even emotionally inter-twined and -woven. Sometimes (e.g. my last post)
>>> it much diminises the capacity of my body, of which my feelings are not
>>> always the best functioning part, for action. For which I apologize to the
>>> whole list.
>>>
>>> Here in Korea, schools are reopening and classes are going off line
>>> again. This has been a gradual process, both because different grades have
>>> different levels of urgency (high schoolers who are entering college are
>>> considered urgent) and because different ages have different levels of risk
>>> (again, older kids given to clubbing and courier jobs--the sources of two
>>> recent spikes--are at greater risk). But yesterday we started second grade
>>> classes, which means that our Vygotsky Community, which is overwhelmingly
>>> composed of elementary school teachers, is now back in the classroom.
>>>
>>> You can see from this order that one thing that was not discussed was
>>> the different levels of teacher presence that kids emotionally need. This
>>> is something teachers themselves are quite sensitive too--it is why
>>> second-grade teachers are usually motherly women with school age children
>>> of their own, and sixth-grade teachers tend to look like that physical
>>> education trainer you were so terrified of in sixth grade. But varying
>>> levels of need for teacher presence has not really been a factor in public
>>> health planning at all, nor am I sure it should be. At some point
>>> (adolescence?), children really do need to differentiate their emotional
>>> attachment to a subject matter from their emotional attachment to a
>>> teacher, not just because study has to become self-sustaining to go
>>> anywhere but because teachers are passionate bodies and this can greatly
>>> increase but also greatly decrease their capacity for action. In China in
>>> the eighties, for example, young professors did date their students at
>>> university level but nobody dated anybody before that. I think that
>>> here--helping us distinguish passion for the subject matter from passion
>>> for the instructor--Zoom can also play an important role, the same kind of
>>> positive role that those goofy parasol-hats they put on Chinese
>>> preschoolers to enforce social distancing have played.
>>>
>>> (By the way, our Vygotsky Community has more than doubled in size since
>>> the crisis began and we went on-line. Believe me--it's the subject matter!)
>>>
>>> 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__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZdWAdl4TA$ 
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!WBIKx_PGWy9c_5V3mDvDNJVVxbZ8MEjkHhRS-OIGQmR1hzERRuRQ9FPV6IgP2zuUMhn5OA$>
>>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
>>> Works* *Volume One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZd_eBvbXQ$ 
>>>
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WBIKx_PGWy9c_5V3mDvDNJVVxbZ8MEjkHhRS-OIGQmR1hzERRuRQ9FPV6IgP2zuw1k_7AA$>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 1:36 AM Tom Richardson <
>>> tom.richardson3@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi David
>>>> Fortunately I was listening to this thread, so "I hear you!". I shall
>>>> dig to see what I find about Spinoza in LSV.
>>>> Big thank you.
>>>> Tom
>>>>         BoWen
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 22:43, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Rob--
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks--my link works okay, but it's probably because I'm already
>>>>> logged in. So I replaced the link with yours.
>>>>>
>>>>> For a fine example of witless misunderstanding justified with willfull
>>>>> misrepresentation that was used to drive  Bernstein's work out of the
>>>>> academy, see the work of Peter Jones, referenced in my article.
>>>>>
>>>>> Peter E. Jones (2013) Bernstein's ‘codes’ and the linguistics of
>>>>> ‘deficit’, Language and Education, 27:2, 161-179, DOI:
>>>>> 10.1080/09500782.2012.760587
>>>>>
>>>>> Notice the scare quotes around "code" (which Bernstein did
>>>>> use) and likewise the term "deficit" (which Bernstein explicitly
>>>>> repudiated). Clever, huh?
>>>>>
>>>>> But Jones doesn't make this stuff up. He mostly just borrows from the
>>>>> long liberal anti-Marxist American tradition of this kind of attack, going
>>>>> back to William Labov. For example, the "linguist" Jones cites against
>>>>> Halliday is actually a historian of psychology (Jonathan Edwards) who
>>>>> argues that some cultures can have completely degenerate moral codes but
>>>>> very advanced languages, such as cannibal savages!
>>>>>
>>>>> A few years ago we were discussing an article here on xmca by Marilyn
>>>>> Fleer and I asked her if she was a Bernsteinian. I have always considered
>>>>> myself one, and I was genuinely curious to find others of a similar
>>>>> persuasion; Bernstein's name was not so blackened in Australia as it was in
>>>>> America, and Ruqaiya Hasan, who taught in Sydney, was always proud to
>>>>> acknowledge Bernstein as her colleague and mentor. Marilyn was a little
>>>>> indignant.
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael--
>>>>>
>>>>> Here in Korea the main way of giving on-line classes is just uploading
>>>>> audio file which the student then listen to when they have time and giving
>>>>> lots of homework. Curiously, some of the kids prefer this. ALL of my
>>>>> students dislike using the camera. I am not sure what to make of this...
>>>>>
>>>>> Every crisis is a turning point. Education has gleefully saddled three
>>>>> cash cows: foreign students, college sports, and diploma mills, and all
>>>>> three of these are now hamburger. On the one hand, Zoom classes and audio
>>>>> classes allow us to provide universal college education for almost
>>>>> nothing--if we can solve the mediational problems. On the other, pinkspace
>>>>> classes can easily be social-distanced--if we can just make undergraduate
>>>>> classes the size of graduate seminars (with more classes outside in good
>>>>> weather). But both solutions--universal online tertiary education and
>>>>> extending the graduate seminar experience to undergraduates--will
>>>>> inevitably hinge on the outcome of the struggle to make education an
>>>>> intellectual public institution instead of a semi-intellectual luxury
>>>>> brand,  and this in turn will hinge on the struggle for preventive medicine
>>>>> based on foresight instead of astonishment.
>>>>>
>>>>> Oi, Tom! (Way over on the other thread, so I have to shout!)
>>>>>
>>>>> Vygotsky writes a LOT about Spinoza; his sister was doing her PhD on
>>>>> the guy when he was still in high school and he went to stay with her at
>>>>> Moscow University and caught the bug. He was working on a vast tome on how
>>>>> Spinoza's work could be retooled to give us a Marxist (materialist, monist,
>>>>> but dialectical) theory of higher emotions when he died. We are translating
>>>>> it all into Korean, and I am trying to write a preface. Spinoza believed in
>>>>> sentient meat: "Deus, Sive Natura" ("God, that is to say, Nature...") Above
>>>>> all, though, Spinoza believed that emotions are anything that increases or
>>>>> decreases our ability to do things. The interesting thing, which I am still
>>>>> trying to wrap my head around, is that one of those things that does this
>>>>> is the idea of the emotion itself--the perezhivanie.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZdWAdl4TA$ 
>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Xxc_XhqDwcRNNskS29_qkEvlYqR1a1UszU0k6dB-USF8PCH3fnJ5OcvuWgTKCF-MUhfj1A$>
>>>>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
>>>>> Works* *Volume One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>>>>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QVwBIiClRdp9TWPmK9WGM9KfxQINeXHq68oJyEOQlH-i6SDmOvEQHPYBYxDbRZd_eBvbXQ$ 
>>>>>
>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Xxc_XhqDwcRNNskS29_qkEvlYqR1a1UszU0k6dB-USF8PCH3fnJ5OcvuWgTKCF94i4Ox7A$>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 26, 2020 at 10:51 PM Glassman, Michael <
>>>>> glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello David, Elizabeth, Annalisa, Rob, others,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well social presence and teacher presence are two completely
>>>>>> different lines of research and thinking even though they sound alike.
>>>>>> Teacher presence comes from localized classroom research while social
>>>>>> presence comes from the communication field I believe sometime in the
>>>>>> 1960s.  Lately I have begun to think of teacher presence as similar to
>>>>>> Bourdeiu's cultural capital. Our education system teaches certain groups of
>>>>>> children how to read and get in sync with teachers from their more subtle
>>>>>> physical signs so that they become more successful later in their school
>>>>>> careers and in life. Many of the more successful children also get practice
>>>>>> in reading these different signs at home. It is the old adage, don't listen
>>>>>> to what I say, watch what I do. Social presence on the other hand is more
>>>>>> related to our own understanding of our own communications and the value of
>>>>>> those communications. We have a sense of what we are doing from those who
>>>>>> are watching us (in the broad sense), and this sense changes as our sense
>>>>>> of those who are watching us changes not only how we act but the investment
>>>>>> we make in what we do changes accordingly. I see it all the time in
>>>>>> teachers, who they are changes completely when they get up in from of a
>>>>>> room of students. Just a mind experiment. The next time you read an XMCA
>>>>>> post see if you can imagine a few of the members standing over your should
>>>>>> observing you are you are reading with the expectation of some response.
>>>>>> See how this might change your behavior.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As for Zoom. I just think it is not a good tool for education and the
>>>>>> reason we use it is illusory (because it recreates a place-based experience
>>>>>> so we are more comfortable with it?).  Zoom's purpose is not education in
>>>>>> the sense of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. Its proximal purpose
>>>>>> I believe was to sell to corporations and such for meetings so they would
>>>>>> not have to spend as much on travel. Its distal purpose, meeting platforms
>>>>>> in general, was so individuals could engage in multiple activities related
>>>>>> to the topic but not focused on the topic. I mean it is kind of cool, you
>>>>>> can have a meeting where you wear a tie on top and boxer shorts below. And
>>>>>> we are sometimes a talking head culture. But it is by nature very
>>>>>> unilateral and expert oriented. Do we have to develop a whole new cultural
>>>>>> capital oeuvre for Zoom meetings. We must make sure that those who are
>>>>>> ahead stay ahead. Annalisa in answer to your question no education or Zoom,
>>>>>> I worry about binary choices such as this. Maybe we should be asking
>>>>>> ourselves how we got here in the first place. Why are these our only two
>>>>>> choices right now, and many attempts using Meeting platforms are failing as
>>>>>> they seem to be, how do we move forward from here. Why aren't we asking
>>>>>> more questions, trying to understand how our great digital experiment is
>>>>>> failing education. And speaking to Rob's poignant use of the term pink
>>>>>> space, why is the lack of universal broadband dominating discussions. I
>>>>>> think about the whole one to one movement and I really question why we
>>>>>> leaped ahead to this without a reckoning over the need to have every corner
>>>>>> of our society equitably wired (spoiler alert: because instead of
>>>>>> corporations making oodles of money our society will have to spend oodles
>>>>>> of money). So Annalisa I got back to your question, is it better to have no
>>>>>> education or Zoom and I ask if you stepped on a nail would it be better to
>>>>>> put on a band-aid to stop the bleeding or to figure our how to save your
>>>>>> life (I know the answer will be both but where do I prioritize).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Michael
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <
>>>>>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of robsub@ariadne.org.uk
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2020 4:53 AM
>>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Teacher Distancing and "Social Distancing"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just a couple of very quick observations. (I find regularly that by
>>>>>> the time I have formulated my response to something, the conversation has
>>>>>> moved on by several degrees, so I'm getting in quickly.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Firstly the link to your article on Ruqaiya didn't resolve, David.
>>>>>> But I found it here:
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d7Wrm3_kaKqODPVr-UtouXiIa-kw$
>>>>>> . Thank you for that, though - looks well worth reading.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Secondly, I always had the impression that Bernstein was resisted not
>>>>>> because of his work on codes specifically, but because he was too prone to
>>>>>> allowing his work to be used to justify class differentials, almost to the
>>>>>> level of the poor keep themselves poor by deliberately restricting the
>>>>>> language their children learn.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thirdly, meatspace. Hmmm. I'm toying with the idea of pinkspace. Less
>>>>>> physically vulgar than meatspace and reflects the reality that the physical
>>>>>> world, just like the online world, is dominated by those of us who are
>>>>>> pink. Just a thought. Needs developing though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rob
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2020-05-26 03:08, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>>>> > 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/vie
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> w/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d
>>>>>> > 7Wrm3_kaKqODPVr-Utot_Yz0eEQ$  [1]
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > 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/978981150
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> 5270__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d7Wrm3_kaKqO
>>>>>> > DPVr-UtotPljj6rQ$  [2]
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > Links:
>>>>>> > ------
>>>>>> > [1]
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/vie
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> w/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zc
>>>>>> > e9P2I5M_FZBJKElhGyP20UejX0w$
>>>>>> > [2]
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/978981150
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> 5270__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zce9P2I5M_FZB
>>>>>> > JKElhGyP026P9-1A$
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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