From M.Chesterman@mmu.ac.uk Wed Jan 6 06:29:44 2021 From: M.Chesterman@mmu.ac.uk (Mick Chesterman) Date: Wed, 6 Jan 2021 14:29:44 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Welcome to the "xmca-l" mailing list - an introduction from Mick In-Reply-To: <1608744142280.13655@mmu.ac.uk> References: <1608744142280.13655@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: Thanks for the replies from Huw and Helena, For some reason they are not coming through to my email but I was able to read them on the list archive. Helena, I'll look into the work of Colin Barker, it'll be good to have that link to the organisation where I work. Huw, I take your point on a false dichotomy of craft-first / concepts first approaches. Sometimes there's a tribalism among practitioners concerning favourite tactics. It reminds me of similar tribalism of social movements - I have to confess I've been guilty of that in the past before embracing what was helpfully framed as a 'diversity of tactics'. It's also useful to think about what is an appropriate level of engagement with the deeper parts of the related theories you mention (CHAT/CHT/AT). Ideally I'd like to have that deeper understanding even if it's not a focal part of the study, as a way of avoiding gaffes. So I'll lurk for a while to do that! Thanks Mick -----Original Message----- From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Mick Chesterman Sent: 23 December 2020 17:22 To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Welcome to the "xmca-l" mailing list - an introduction from Mick Hi there, I've just joined the list and wanted to quickly introduce myself. I'm Mick Chesterman. I'm working and doing a PhD part-time at Manchester Met UK, in the ESRI (education) there. Before that I was involved in activist/community work often doing web/media training. Indymedia (for anyone that recalls) was a big part of that time. I still run a related free software documentation project https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://flossmanuals.net__;!!Mih3wA!RMQWWH8R95meDhmGcZWbHjZZi-qp2F_7we2v-HFtUhD9ZsU0kH89S6RleelCyUh6PFLWnQ$ I've signed up to the xmca list as I'm starting to lock down the framework and methodology I'll use for my PhD thesis. I'm becoming aware of the need to prioritise beyond "something around design experiments and CHAT" to pick key concepts to elaborate. So I'm here to pick up info that will help me do that work, perhaps ask questions if I get stuck, to keep an ear out for suitable conferences or development opportunities and possibly find future research partners. "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer available on its website https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer__;!!Mih3wA!TxMTECMX2taMXz1KXzcXqL72e2y65ps7mEc3c_pSw59qBid2-O9YaRV-7R482GcNcTMxsw$ " From dkellogg60@gmail.com Thu Jan 7 15:09:16 2021 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2021 08:09:16 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Job Available Message-ID: There's a job available teaching psychology at United Arab Emirates university. These jobs are highly lucrative, and UAE is an exciting and interesting crossroads at which to live, work and observe an important part of the world at an important historical moment. People considering the job described in the publically available attachment should probably consider this information as well: LGBT rights in the United Arab Emirates - Wikipedia I am circulating both pieces of information on this list at my own initiative and on my own responsibility. David Kellogg Sangmyung University , New Article with Song Seon-mi in Early Years: Un-naming names: Using Vygotsky?s language games and Halliday?s grammar to study how children learn how names are made and unmade Some free e-prints available at: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2C9HCKGJEYNVEKUGHYKV/full?target=10.1080*09575146.2020.1853682__;Lw!!Mih3wA!Rs88-WLNfF_PHw9rRzoIZzFGhF27LY_FJvjZggOBK5_EGtU1kfCuVfPi-zU8u7nUgfqr1A$ New book forthcoming in 2021: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works, Vol. II: The Problem of Age. Translated with Prefatory Notes and Outlines by Nikolai Veresov and David Kellogg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210108/a5f47a3a/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Recuiting New Faculty 2021.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 15166 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210108/a5f47a3a/attachment.bin From Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu Sun Jan 10 17:09:10 2021 From: Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu (Coppens, Andrew) Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2021 01:09:10 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Tenure-track job in Equity-based Inclusive Elementary and Special Education Message-ID: Hi everyone, I?m happy to answer questions about this position in my department at the University of New Hampshire (USA). Please forward to any colleagues or institutions you think might be interested. Thank you. // Tenure-Track Faculty Position Opening: Assistant Professor of Education in Equity-based Inclusive Elementary and Special Education The University of New Hampshire Department of Education in the College of Liberal Arts is seeking a tenure-track assistant professor in Equity-Based Inclusive Elementary and Special Education for Fall semester 2021. The selected candidate will be integral to the new B.A. in Educational Studies: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (the EDI), an innovative undergraduate program leading to dual certification in elementary education/special education or elementary education/English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). UNH and the Department of Education are committed to supporting and sustaining an educational community that is inclusive, diverse, and justice-oriented. This commitment is inextricably linked to our mission of teaching and research excellence. The department strongly encourages candidates with historically marginalized identities to apply. Additionally, the department is dedicated to providing support for historically marginalized faculty and staff to thrive at UNH. Comprehensive position information is available here: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://jobs.usnh.edu/postings/38432__;!!Mih3wA!RAPcbQbSCa7inDBAcc86dn-vJNnvwvbpls30_4pbk--TC-4Ub4Q5Fpq-MsytAsj2schjoA$ Posting Number: PF0439FY20 Qualifications: The position requires a doctorate in special education and/or elementary education or closely related field, and a research agenda that addresses the ways that multiple factors (race, SES, disability, language) affect students? and families? access to equitable and inclusive public education. Strong candidates have a record of serving and partnering with culturally, linguistically diverse and minoritized communities across multiple levels of educational systems. Strong candidates will have an emerging body of research, evidence of high impact publications, and strong potential for acquiring research funding to support research, teaching, and engagement activities. Additional preferred qualifications: Proficiency in two or more languages. Applicants materials: - Cover letter describing a research agenda, as well as teaching and community-based experiences relevant to the job description - A brief equity, diversity, and inclusion statement that includes concrete examples and evidence of how the candidate?s own research, teaching, or community engagement have both had a positive impact on nondominant groups - Curriculum vitae - List of three professional references with full contact information - Optional documents: a recent syllabus Cover letters as well as any questions regarding this position, should be directed to the Search Committee Chair, Dr. Jan Nisbet. Questions about the application process or requirements should be directed to the Department?s Education Senior Administrator, Elaine Walczak (Elaine.Walczak@unh.edu). Review of applications will begin January 26th, 2021 and will continue until the position is filled. All aspects of the interview process will be virtual. // --- Andrew D. Coppens UNH Education Dept., 330C Hamilton Smith Hall 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210111/97de3760/attachment.html From anthonymbarra@gmail.com Sun Jan 17 05:50:42 2021 From: anthonymbarra@gmail.com (Anthony Barra) Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2021 08:50:42 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" Message-ID: Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most like to hear a range of responses to?" On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: *This question: "What do you think all this means? *(excerpted from Collected Works, Vol 4) - ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is *a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting*" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? If you have any thoughts, please share. Thanks, and happy new year ~ Anthony Barra P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: - "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. - All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child." (p. 98) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210117/c3cb9a26/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Mon Jan 18 09:03:57 2021 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 17:03:57 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Anthony, I will take a crack at this, but I'm only piecing together a patchwork of things I've learned and then sewing it together. If anyone wishes to correct me, I won't mind. It's just to kickstart a collaborative discussion. Previously, that is 19th-century-wise, people did not know that children's minds develop. It used to be that children were thought to be little adults, so remembering what adults used to think about children's minds is important context. Piaget was innovative at the time, indicating that children had distinct phases of development, but Vygotsky while appreciating the distinct phases of development, did not accept that these phases were age distinct or age dependent, but that there was something more to it. He intuited a dialectic process with the child's environment that was not taken into account in Piaget's theory of development. (I'm not sure from where the quote comes from, but it sounds like early work.) A simplification or a pseudo-mnemonic, is that Piaget stated that learning follows development. Whereas for Vygotsky, development follows learning. I suppose that's your elevator statement, which may be stated in less than 2 minutes. Vygotsky maintained that it is not nature vs nurture, which is a false argument, but that development of the child's mind depends upon nature AND nurture together, and the way it happens depends upon the nature (genetic material) the child is born with and the nurture (environmental material) the child is born into, combined. This is what he means when he states the child's development is "...a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting." That there are several phases of development that are not linear in nature, and that there is a flooding of processes that push and pull, where some developmental processes bridge to others while others disintegrate from being pushed out of the way by other underlying competing processes. This is actually correct from what we know about neuronal brain development. Vygotsky basically understood that all these processes were plastic, but not arbitrary, that there is an underlying structure and predictable dynamic, but what this structure and dynamic actually is had yet to be determined at that time. And still is, actually. His insight was innovative because theories at the time were stuck at an impasse, indicating it was all nurture or all nature. If it's all nurture, then we are all blank slates, which does not explain differences in inclinations and aptitudes given the same environment; if it's all nature, then how to explain improvement in development when and where there is opportunity or failing when and where there is a lack thereof? Vygotsky was a new voice to say it was both, but the nut to crack was how is it both? Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Anthony Barra Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 6:50 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" [EXTERNAL] Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most like to hear a range of responses to?" On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: This question: "What do you think all this means? (excerpted from Collected Works, Vol 4) * ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? If you have any thoughts, please share. Thanks, and happy new year ~ Anthony Barra P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: * "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. * All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child." (p. 98) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210118/06750673/attachment.html From shirinvossoughi@gmail.com Mon Jan 18 09:13:20 2021 From: shirinvossoughi@gmail.com (Shirin Vossoughi) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:13:20 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] "learning loss" Message-ID: Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!V_zce6_iKqDaSj7UBvVR2qFpfRrDGZ4J1l2cSf8ts02DFRY9qwcdVYG42K3tfecDn5vPGQ$ ~Shirin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210118/4bf0bd3c/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Mon Jan 18 09:18:50 2021 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 17:18:50 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Hello again, I would also add, which I implied but did not state, that the comparison of the child mind to the adult's, as was done at the time, or was a habit of orientation anyway, was to paint what the child mind was as a deficit in comparison to the adult mind. That's the tone of the literature at the time. I mean there is nothing really positive about an Oedipal complex, you know? It's fairly pathological in orientation. Vygotsky proposed a more equitable way to discuss the unknowns of child development, that was without the negative bias and baggage. Sorry I did not include this in my post. I had just seen the second paragraphs you had postscripted, after I'd already sent my post. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: Annalisa Aguilar Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 10:03 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" Hi Anthony, I will take a crack at this, but I'm only piecing together a patchwork of things I've learned and then sewing it together. If anyone wishes to correct me, I won't mind. It's just to kickstart a collaborative discussion. Previously, that is 19th-century-wise, people did not know that children's minds develop. It used to be that children were thought to be little adults, so remembering what adults used to think about children's minds is important context. Piaget was innovative at the time, indicating that children had distinct phases of development, but Vygotsky while appreciating the distinct phases of development, did not accept that these phases were age distinct or age dependent, but that there was something more to it. He intuited a dialectic process with the child's environment that was not taken into account in Piaget's theory of development. (I'm not sure from where the quote comes from, but it sounds like early work.) A simplification or a pseudo-mnemonic, is that Piaget stated that learning follows development. Whereas for Vygotsky, development follows learning. I suppose that's your elevator statement, which may be stated in less than 2 minutes. Vygotsky maintained that it is not nature vs nurture, which is a false argument, but that development of the child's mind depends upon nature AND nurture together, and the way it happens depends upon the nature (genetic material) the child is born with and the nurture (environmental material) the child is born into, combined. This is what he means when he states the child's development is "...a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting." That there are several phases of development that are not linear in nature, and that there is a flooding of processes that push and pull, where some developmental processes bridge to others while others disintegrate from being pushed out of the way by other underlying competing processes. This is actually correct from what we know about neuronal brain development. Vygotsky basically understood that all these processes were plastic, but not arbitrary, that there is an underlying structure and predictable dynamic, but what this structure and dynamic actually is had yet to be determined at that time. And still is, actually. His insight was innovative because theories at the time were stuck at an impasse, indicating it was all nurture or all nature. If it's all nurture, then we are all blank slates, which does not explain differences in inclinations and aptitudes given the same environment; if it's all nature, then how to explain improvement in development when and where there is opportunity or failing when and where there is a lack thereof? Vygotsky was a new voice to say it was both, but the nut to crack was how is it both? Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Anthony Barra Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 6:50 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" [EXTERNAL] Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most like to hear a range of responses to?" On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: This question: "What do you think all this means? (excerpted from Collected Works, Vol 4) * ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? If you have any thoughts, please share. Thanks, and happy new year ~ Anthony Barra P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: * "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. * All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child." (p. 98) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210118/0f2656d8/attachment.html From darya@education.ucsb.edu Mon Jan 18 13:30:00 2021 From: darya@education.ucsb.edu (Diana Arya) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 13:30:00 -0800 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Shirin and all, Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. I particularly liked the following: "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices essential for ongoing, deep learning . In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines critical thinking and individual and collective well-being ." And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young people?s brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we need to let go of to create the future we desire?" IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in racist/discriminatory policies and practices. Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in bringing the truth forward. Best, D On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi wrote: > Dear all, > > Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on > cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around > "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of > color as educational partners and leaders: > > > https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!TSmCyas87McxqNpyYt8qhxlgVa0VjT0sXfTsk_mTEF6OgQeJLVGEsQItwlrQCPYC18A92w$ > > > ~Shirin > > > -- *Nothing can be changed until it is faced. *(James Baldwin) Diana J. Arya, PhD she/her/hers/they/them/theirs Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic Gevirtz Graduate School of Education University of California, Santa Barbara https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!TSmCyas87McxqNpyYt8qhxlgVa0VjT0sXfTsk_mTEF6OgQeJLVGEsQItwlrQCPbO-ZJSfg$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210118/954eedbf/attachment.html From shirinvossoughi@gmail.com Mon Jan 18 17:10:32 2021 From: shirinvossoughi@gmail.com (Shirin Vossoughi) Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 19:10:32 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you Diana ~ Really appreciate hearing your reflections! Given the conversations that have happened here as of late, I also strongly push back on the idea (sometimes expressed in our fields) that race is a U.S. issue. There are ofcourse specific historical and contemporary manifestations of white supremacy and racial hierarchy in the U.S. context, but these are deeply global concerns that require careful attention from scholars of learning. Shirin On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 3:32 PM Diana Arya wrote: > Dear Shirin and all, > > Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who > find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X > months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some > of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the > marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the > longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. > > I particularly liked the following: > > "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing > > of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices > > essential for ongoing, deep learning > . > In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines > critical thinking and individual and collective well-being > > ." > > And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: > > "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what > lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young > people?s brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we > need to let go of to create the future we desire?" > > IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias > in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such > sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps > avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. > public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of > discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is > culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in > racist/discriminatory policies and practices. > > Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task > before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in > bringing the truth forward. > > > Best, > D > > On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi < > shirinvossoughi@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Dear all, >> >> Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws >> on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around >> "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of >> color as educational partners and leaders: >> >> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!QxQxXWaVQ6LGtkADBlDXyHGQ_giSMCWUdzrzTUfEk3m7mlrB9Ju_Oy7GskR7YLNA1GnBuw$ >> >> >> ~Shirin >> >> >> > > -- > *Nothing can be changed until it is faced. *(James Baldwin) > > Diana J. Arya, PhD > she/her/hers/they/them/theirs > Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education > Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic > Gevirtz Graduate School of Education > University of California, Santa Barbara > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!QxQxXWaVQ6LGtkADBlDXyHGQ_giSMCWUdzrzTUfEk3m7mlrB9Ju_Oy7GskR7YLP9hUWd6g$ > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210118/9d65644a/attachment.html From lsmolucha@hotmail.com Tue Jan 19 09:04:56 2021 From: lsmolucha@hotmail.com (Larry Smolucha) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 17:04:56 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: From Francine: Anthony, Annalisa, and all, The key to the dialectic, to evolution and involution, is the internalization of the verbal guidance of a more knowledgeable person, with a focus on how the child uses that inner speech to guide his/her psychological processes and behavior. In this dialectic there is the meeting of two minds and the possibility of an emergent higher self-guiding consciousness for the child. Accompanying neural systems of self-regulation develop linking the prefrontal cortices with the rest of the brain. My question to Vygotsky and Luria - did I get that right????????? ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 11:18 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" Hello again, I would also add, which I implied but did not state, that the comparison of the child mind to the adult's, as was done at the time, or was a habit of orientation anyway, was to paint what the child mind was as a deficit in comparison to the adult mind. That's the tone of the literature at the time. I mean there is nothing really positive about an Oedipal complex, you know? It's fairly pathological in orientation. Vygotsky proposed a more equitable way to discuss the unknowns of child development, that was without the negative bias and baggage. Sorry I did not include this in my post. I had just seen the second paragraphs you had postscripted, after I'd already sent my post. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: Annalisa Aguilar Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 10:03 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" Hi Anthony, I will take a crack at this, but I'm only piecing together a patchwork of things I've learned and then sewing it together. If anyone wishes to correct me, I won't mind. It's just to kickstart a collaborative discussion. Previously, that is 19th-century-wise, people did not know that children's minds develop. It used to be that children were thought to be little adults, so remembering what adults used to think about children's minds is important context. Piaget was innovative at the time, indicating that children had distinct phases of development, but Vygotsky while appreciating the distinct phases of development, did not accept that these phases were age distinct or age dependent, but that there was something more to it. He intuited a dialectic process with the child's environment that was not taken into account in Piaget's theory of development. (I'm not sure from where the quote comes from, but it sounds like early work.) A simplification or a pseudo-mnemonic, is that Piaget stated that learning follows development. Whereas for Vygotsky, development follows learning. I suppose that's your elevator statement, which may be stated in less than 2 minutes. Vygotsky maintained that it is not nature vs nurture, which is a false argument, but that development of the child's mind depends upon nature AND nurture together, and the way it happens depends upon the nature (genetic material) the child is born with and the nurture (environmental material) the child is born into, combined. This is what he means when he states the child's development is "...a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting." That there are several phases of development that are not linear in nature, and that there is a flooding of processes that push and pull, where some developmental processes bridge to others while others disintegrate from being pushed out of the way by other underlying competing processes. This is actually correct from what we know about neuronal brain development. Vygotsky basically understood that all these processes were plastic, but not arbitrary, that there is an underlying structure and predictable dynamic, but what this structure and dynamic actually is had yet to be determined at that time. And still is, actually. His insight was innovative because theories at the time were stuck at an impasse, indicating it was all nurture or all nature. If it's all nurture, then we are all blank slates, which does not explain differences in inclinations and aptitudes given the same environment; if it's all nature, then how to explain improvement in development when and where there is opportunity or failing when and where there is a lack thereof? Vygotsky was a new voice to say it was both, but the nut to crack was how is it both? Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Anthony Barra Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2021 6:50 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "Which one question . . .?" [EXTERNAL] Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most like to hear a range of responses to?" On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: This question: "What do you think all this means? (excerpted from Collected Works, Vol 4) * ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? If you have any thoughts, please share. Thanks, and happy new year ~ Anthony Barra P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: * "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. * All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child." (p. 98) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210119/0fdf5f58/attachment.html From lsmolucha@hotmail.com Tue Jan 19 09:17:24 2021 From: lsmolucha@hotmail.com (Larry Smolucha) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 17:17:24 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] MLK on overcoming racism In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: >From Francine: I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. ~From the ?I have a dream? speech (MLK) Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. (MLK) We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. (MLK) ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Diana Arya Sent: Monday, January 18, 2021 3:30 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Dear Shirin and all, Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. I particularly liked the following: "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices essential for ongoing, deep learning. In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines critical thinking and individual and collective well-being." And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young people?s brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we need to let go of to create the future we desire?" IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in racist/discriminatory policies and practices. Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in bringing the truth forward. Best, D On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi > wrote: Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!V9o8LVkGL2K4ZfYotokB9MVBlc_KILmj80cn6r0vaoNeegg_kgaOTS96l4jdxxFe_SgRcg$ ~Shirin -- Nothing can be changed until it is faced. (James Baldwin) Diana J. Arya, PhD she/her/hers/they/them/theirs Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic Gevirtz Graduate School of Education University of California, Santa Barbara https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!V9o8LVkGL2K4ZfYotokB9MVBlc_KILmj80cn6r0vaoNeegg_kgaOTS96l4jdxxGsqc_IUA$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210119/6be5b430/attachment.html From hworthen@illinois.edu Tue Jan 19 11:57:05 2021 From: hworthen@illinois.edu (Worthen, Helena Harlow) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 19:57:05 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3FD6784E-C3E4-4CC7-9C69-3D52FC3D4720@illinois.edu> Shirin, thank you for posting this article from TruthOut, co authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston. It gives me a chance to speak up for my primary concern, which is the employment conditions of people working in higher ed. The majority of these are working as contingents ? adjuncts, precarious, semester-by-semester faculty. This is the labor pool where we are most likely to find people of color. They are the people who lose their jobs first, who have little recourse to claim back their job, and who, even when they have a job, are least able to exercise academic freedom and teach what they know to be true if it is in opposition to the official curriculum. Higher ed is going through a profound shake-up, not just in the US but globally. As an industry, little stands in its way to prevent it from re-constituting itself as a stripped-down internet-based vendor of credentials and ?lifelong learning? employing thousands of unprotected faculty via platforms like those used by Uber. What does the alternative to this look like? What are the concrete structures necessary to recover (or invent) higher education as the place where knowledge is created, protected, examined and shared for the purpose of supporting an equal, open and democratic society? What would labs look like? What would libraries look like? How about tuition costs, promotion requirements, faculty salaries, shared governance structures, hiring and admission standards? The re-constitution of higher education can go either way. Now is the time to be thinking of answers to these questions. Thanks ? Helena Helena Worthen U of Illinois (retired) hworthen@illinois.edu Worthen, Helena Harlow hworthen@illinois.edu helenaworthen.wordpress.com check your registration at vote.gov On Jan 18, 2021, at 1:30 PM, Diana Arya > wrote: Dear Shirin and all, Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. I particularly liked the following: "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices essential for ongoing, deep learning. In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines critical thinking and individual and collective well-being." And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young people?s brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we need to let go of to create the future we desire?" IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in racist/discriminatory policies and practices. Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in bringing the truth forward. Best, D On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi > wrote: Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!R45hB_CUYi1FG1FKmyA5QqS2Fk-MY0O_zkOhthB8gCFqOrCmGUblqkVXLrgwlIT9h20wrg$ ~Shirin -- Nothing can be changed until it is faced. (James Baldwin) Diana J. Arya, PhD she/her/hers/they/them/theirs Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic Gevirtz Graduate School of Education University of California, Santa Barbara https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!R45hB_CUYi1FG1FKmyA5QqS2Fk-MY0O_zkOhthB8gCFqOrCmGUblqkVXLrgwlIRIK6DAxQ$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210119/93d61115/attachment.html From Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu Tue Jan 19 12:22:54 2021 From: Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu (Coppens, Andrew) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 20:22:54 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Shirin, all ? I really appreciate this piece; it finds an immediate place in my courses this semester and condenses so many important historical and political issues. I?d like to make explicit a connection to ?summer slide,? a close cousin of ?learning loss,? with very similar deficit and colonial origins. Your and Maxine?s critiques are as relevant to SS as they are to LL. The former has some helpful and recently published psychometric critiques whose implications are complimentary ? summarized, here: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.educationnext.org/is-summer-learning-loss-real-how-i-lost-faith-education-research-results/__;!!Mih3wA!VQH3djGtT8ulS6h0jloYrs49v96mjKRkqMoQow4RauTKqDDyUIlFgfnmbOyI7v07eaXrVQ$ . Looking into the issue a year or so ago, nearly all of the proposed solutions I encountered to SS (taking its validity for granted) were consistent with the basic deficit logic that the more time that children and youth of non-dominant race or class backgrounds spend with their own families and communities the worse off they are, and promoted the colonial ?fix? that schooling ought to occupy more and more of these children?s days, weeks, and years. Again, many thanks. / Andrew --- Andrew D. Coppens UNH Education Dept., 330C Hamilton Smith Hall 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu Date: Monday, January 18, 2021 at 12:18 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "learning loss" Caution - External Email Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!VQH3djGtT8ulS6h0jloYrs49v96mjKRkqMoQow4RauTKqDDyUIlFgfnmbOyI7v0zIi1KKw$ ~Shirin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210119/7767a9b8/attachment.html From julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk Tue Jan 19 15:30:19 2021 From: julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk (Julian Williams) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2021 23:30:19 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" and summer slide In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Andrew - hi I think the key phrase is in your parentheses "taking its validity for granted" - why would you do that? Validity always has to be viewed in terms of consequences, and context. Ask yourself, perhaps: what is this ideology doing to learning-teaching and the curriculum and assessment? The result of this concept here in my country is a combination of (i) poorer children who have no access to internet and adequate WIFI being more or less forced to socially mix in school to get an education (even in lock-down) and take the virus home to their elderly relatives; (ii) suffer a "catch-up" curriculum that focuses on maths and language targets at the expense of the creative arts, eg music, dance and drama that offers emotional expression and mutual support; and (iii) that denies children forced to stay home from the access to lunch and breakfast support that they get when they attend. (See I tend to go in threes - ? ) Meanwhile the children of the relatively wealthy are online at home, with family and private tutors when the school can't manage. The learning loss is- quite simply - a con perpetrated on the disadvantaged to disadvantage them further - because it offers the oppressed everything they dont need to 'get on' or compete. I say, forget the measurement - go to consequential validity. Julian PS Re the current pandemic, more broadly: Now we have found our "magic money tree" (aka the national bank) - spewing out billions into the coffers of the governing party's "mates" to keep their businesses afloat, and in many cases awash with cash that is producing next to nothing of use, and undermining the public service that we used to rely on and now desperately need - be it in health, education, ..... Check out our national disaster on "Double Down News" (eg 8 broadcasts by epidemiologist and 'prophet of doom' Prof John Ashton over the last 11 months: he saw it coming and kept telling us while our prime mnser did his best to spread the virus) - neoliberalism has screwed us here even worse than Trump. I think our death rate currently 'trumps' the US by quite a bit. ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Coppens, Andrew Sent: 19 January 2021 20:22 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Hi Shirin, all ? I really appreciate this piece; it finds an immediate place in my courses this semester and condenses so many important historical and political issues. I?d like to make explicit a connection to ?summer slide,? a close cousin of ?learning loss,? with very similar deficit and colonial origins. Your and Maxine?s critiques are as relevant to SS as they are to LL. The former has some helpful and recently published psychometric critiques whose implications are complimentary ? summarized, here: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.educationnext.org/is-summer-learning-loss-real-how-i-lost-faith-education-research-results/__;!!Mih3wA!TC9ALYJLAxIZDnA1kcitCbcvnY0mI_kXZAM_nrYNdcbV5ZnHqH8PIQpMLjxLS3WVofjM6A$ . Looking into the issue a year or so ago, nearly all of the proposed solutions I encountered to SS (taking its validity for granted) were consistent with the basic deficit logic that the more time that children and youth of non-dominant race or class backgrounds spend with their own families and communities the worse off they are, and promoted the colonial ?fix? that schooling ought to occupy more and more of these children?s days, weeks, and years. Again, many thanks. / Andrew --- Andrew D. Coppens UNH Education Dept., 330C Hamilton Smith Hall 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu Date: Monday, January 18, 2021 at 12:18 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "learning loss" Caution - External Email Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!TC9ALYJLAxIZDnA1kcitCbcvnY0mI_kXZAM_nrYNdcbV5ZnHqH8PIQpMLjxLS3Wm20-ptg$ ~Shirin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210119/89c16a3c/attachment.html From dkirsh@lsu.edu Tue Jan 19 17:30:36 2021 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 01:30:36 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: <3FD6784E-C3E4-4CC7-9C69-3D52FC3D4720@illinois.edu> References: <3FD6784E-C3E4-4CC7-9C69-3D52FC3D4720@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Helena, I can't think of any answers to your questions that are consistent with the world we live in; in fact, I can barely conceive of a world in which your questions do have answers. Even the immediate past is a mystery-how could it possibly have been true that institutions were created that protect free inquiry and free expression? My only thought is that these institutions emerged from a time of such totalizing class structure that providing access to free inquiry would barely be a threat to power. That hand has now been played out. I hope someone can offer a more optimistic response. David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Worthen, Helena Harlow Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 1:57 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Shirin, thank you for posting this article from TruthOut, co authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston. It gives me a chance to speak up for my primary concern, which is the employment conditions of people working in higher ed. The majority of these are working as contingents - adjuncts, precarious, semester-by-semester faculty. This is the labor pool where we are most likely to find people of color. They are the people who lose their jobs first, who have little recourse to claim back their job, and who, even when they have a job, are least able to exercise academic freedom and teach what they know to be true if it is in opposition to the official curriculum. Higher ed is going through a profound shake-up, not just in the US but globally. As an industry, little stands in its way to prevent it from re-constituting itself as a stripped-down internet-based vendor of credentials and "lifelong learning" employing thousands of unprotected faculty via platforms like those used by Uber. What does the alternative to this look like? What are the concrete structures necessary to recover (or invent) higher education as the place where knowledge is created, protected, examined and shared for the purpose of supporting an equal, open and democratic society? What would labs look like? What would libraries look like? How about tuition costs, promotion requirements, faculty salaries, shared governance structures, hiring and admission standards? The re-constitution of higher education can go either way. Now is the time to be thinking of answers to these questions. Thanks - Helena Helena Worthen U of Illinois (retired) hworthen@illinois.edu Worthen, Helena Harlow hworthen@illinois.edu helenaworthen.wordpress.com check your registration at vote.gov On Jan 18, 2021, at 1:30 PM, Diana Arya > wrote: Dear Shirin and all, Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. I particularly liked the following: "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices essential for ongoing, deep learning. In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines critical thinking and individual and collective well-being." And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young people's brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we need to let go of to create the future we desire?" IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in racist/discriminatory policies and practices. Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in bringing the truth forward. Best, D On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi > wrote: Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!SlmLmj7RGNQrnat2qKt3PswLXKE8ckLacq-JW623qM2Q_k1PLtycxShzpngDcpVXKiJI0A$ ~Shirin -- Nothing can be changed until it is faced. (James Baldwin) Diana J. Arya, PhD she/her/hers/they/them/theirs Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic Gevirtz Graduate School of Education University of California, Santa Barbara https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!SlmLmj7RGNQrnat2qKt3PswLXKE8ckLacq-JW623qM2Q_k1PLtycxShzpngDcpU-wQvGPQ$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210120/ebd43b70/attachment.html From mckinneyderoyston@wisc.edu Tue Jan 19 18:29:08 2021 From: mckinneyderoyston@wisc.edu (Maxine McKinney de Royston) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 02:29:08 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" In-Reply-To: References: <3FD6784E-C3E4-4CC7-9C69-3D52FC3D4720@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <0A641DB5-4341-4229-9B2F-16F263177604@wisc.edu> Greetings all? I appreciate your reflections on our Truthout piece, and the connections being made to things you/many of us care deeply about. Calling ourselves into reflective and material action is, of course, among the many reasons we share our thinking with each other. Whether or not you chime in here, thank you also to those who are sharing this piece on and offline. Helena, I echo your points about the exploitation of contingent faculty and the need for deep thinking around how to provide an alternative vision and institutional structure for higher education. Like David, I?m interested to hear what other models or insights could be shared. Andrew, thank you for making the explicit connection between ?learning loss? (LL) and ?summer slide? (SS). Shirin and I talked about this while writing our piece and due to space constraints didn?t dig into this. These two are certainly close cousin?s, if not fraternal twins. As you note, they come from the same ?deficit and colonial origins.? We see this is in how LL and SS presume that learning has to happen in schools (summer school is school!), how increased instructional minutes (really increased content delivery parading as instruction) necessarily supports learning, and how both approaches equate test performance with learning. It?s worth saying again, as Shirin and I do, that meaningful learning is rarely lost. I?d add that meaningful learning is rarely test-able although it is certainly visible to those who don?t? avoid seeing children and know how to look. Julian, I love your question about what an ideology does to teaching and learning, curriculum and assessment and the push to reconsider validity. Teaching and learning are always politically-laden processes, as is research and all forms of human activity and interaction. I?m reflecting on this challenge to social scientists that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King made back in 1967, especially his points about how the U.S., and many societies around the globe, have been designed to perpetuate and sustain inequality. I think about how our work as CHAT scholars is necessarily to make visible how socio-political structures, spaces, and everyday interactions reproduce such designs as well as to explore those that offer new, dignifying and life-giving ones. As recent discussions on this list suggest, we?ve got some work to do on all fronts. Please take care all, Maxine Dr. Maxine (first name) McKinney de Royston (last name) Assistant Professor, Curriculum & Instruction University of Wisconsin- Madison @profm_de_r Office hour scheduling: calendly.com/mckinneyderoyston Co-editor of The Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning (Routledge) From: on behalf of "dkirsh@lsu.edu" Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 7:31 PM To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Helena, I can?t think of any answers to your questions that are consistent with the world we live in; in fact, I can barely conceive of a world in which your questions do have answers. Even the immediate past is a mystery?how could it possibly have been true that institutions were created that protect free inquiry and free expression? My only thought is that these institutions emerged from a time of such totalizing class structure that providing access to free inquiry would barely be a threat to power. That hand has now been played out. I hope someone can offer a more optimistic response. David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Worthen, Helena Harlow Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 1:57 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Shirin, thank you for posting this article from TruthOut, co authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston. It gives me a chance to speak up for my primary concern, which is the employment conditions of people working in higher ed. The majority of these are working as contingents ? adjuncts, precarious, semester-by-semester faculty. This is the labor pool where we are most likely to find people of color. They are the people who lose their jobs first, who have little recourse to claim back their job, and who, even when they have a job, are least able to exercise academic freedom and teach what they know to be true if it is in opposition to the official curriculum. Higher ed is going through a profound shake-up, not just in the US but globally. As an industry, little stands in its way to prevent it from re-constituting itself as a stripped-down internet-based vendor of credentials and ?lifelong learning? employing thousands of unprotected faculty via platforms like those used by Uber. What does the alternative to this look like? What are the concrete structures necessary to recover (or invent) higher education as the place where knowledge is created, protected, examined and shared for the purpose of supporting an equal, open and democratic society? What would labs look like? What would libraries look like? How about tuition costs, promotion requirements, faculty salaries, shared governance structures, hiring and admission standards? The re-constitution of higher education can go either way. Now is the time to be thinking of answers to these questions. Thanks ? Helena Helena Worthen U of Illinois (retired) hworthen@illinois.edu Worthen, Helena Harlow hworthen@illinois.edu helenaworthen.wordpress.com check your registration at vote.gov On Jan 18, 2021, at 1:30 PM, Diana Arya > wrote: Dear Shirin and all, Thanks so much for sharing this article! Yes, there are many of us who find it problematic when we read that students have "lost" an "average X months of learning" . . . the econometric machine is hard at work, and some of us are starting to see an additional underlying agenda that supports the marketing of new curricula and hence profit. And meanwhile, the longstanding need for real transformation in education is left unaddressed. I particularly liked the following: "Deficit thinking also defines the ways of speaking and knowing of youth of color as problems rather than cultural-historical practices essential for ongoing, deep learning. In fact, basing education on one way of speaking and knowing undermines critical thinking and individual and collective well-being." And on this MLK holiday, I will reflect on the authors' final questions: "As we witness what pandemic-era schooling has further illuminated, what lessons will we head? Will we embrace the complexity and diversity of young people?s brilliance and promise? What are we invested in and what do we need to let go of to create the future we desire?" IMHO, there is no way to avoid issues of racism and other sources of bias in CHAT topics. I acknowledge those in this community who may view such sociocultural and sociohistorical matters to be separable (or perhaps avoidable), but for many of us who grew up in the U.S. and went to U.S. public schools, it is impossible to separate racism and other forms of discrimination from activities in the context of learning, which is culturally and historically laden and, hence, has documented roots in racist/discriminatory policies and practices. Maxine & Shirin: You do an amazing job on outlining the enormous task before us as educators and researchers. Thank you for your efforts in bringing the truth forward. Best, D On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 9:15 AM Shirin Vossoughi > wrote: Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!R4kYGC_cSMu_OzpyEzRfqE9jLCKBC8oJVFtEEkTaib_HB51AzH9Z8HBKUHGv-M_bOOnTAA$ ~Shirin -- Nothing can be changed until it is faced. (James Baldwin) Diana J. Arya, PhD she/her/hers/they/them/theirs Associate Professor and Graduate Diversity Officer, Education Faculty Director, McEnroe Reading and Language Arts Clinic Gevirtz Graduate School of Education University of California, Santa Barbara https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cbleducation.org__;!!Mih3wA!R4kYGC_cSMu_OzpyEzRfqE9jLCKBC8oJVFtEEkTaib_HB51AzH9Z8HBKUHGv-M_vv2JNQQ$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210120/1a6944eb/attachment.html From Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu Wed Jan 20 09:19:18 2021 From: Andrew.Coppens@unh.edu (Coppens, Andrew) Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:19:18 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" and summer slide In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: Hi Julian, I couldn?t agree more. I?m not sure if the ?you/yourself? in your last note indicated a question to me directly, but let me respond nonetheless. Regarding the validity point in parentheses, I didn?t mean to imply that I personally take the validity of ?summer slide? or learning loss for granted ? I most certainly do not, and instead agree completely with Maxine and Shirin?s points. For at least 70 years in the US, since at least Brown and the subsequent ?culture of poverty? debates, which are ongoing, the core principle of views heterodoxic to achievement gap ideologies has been the importance of taking an expansive and ecological purview on validity in considerations of learning, ability, etc. In order to make any sense of educational psychometrics one must proceed largely as if those validity concerns do not exist. However, struggles as large as this one are fought on many frontlines and I think it is strategically useful to have available a psychometric critique of arguments that are built on psychometrics. This was my motivation for sharing the piece. I, too, support and advocate the idea of ?consequential validity.? Lots of work to do to get there at scale in the social science research rooted in US institutions. / Andrew --- Andrew D. Coppens UNH Education Dept., 330C Hamilton Smith Hall 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 6:32 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" and summer slide Caution - External Email Andrew - hi I think the key phrase is in your parentheses "taking its validity for granted" - why would you do that? Validity always has to be viewed in terms of consequences, and context. Ask yourself, perhaps: what is this ideology doing to learning-teaching and the curriculum and assessment? The result of this concept here in my country is a combination of (i) poorer children who have no access to internet and adequate WIFI being more or less forced to socially mix in school to get an education (even in lock-down) and take the virus home to their elderly relatives; (ii) suffer a "catch-up" curriculum that focuses on maths and language targets at the expense of the creative arts, eg music, dance and drama that offers emotional expression and mutual support; and (iii) that denies children forced to stay home from the access to lunch and breakfast support that they get when they attend. (See I tend to go in threes - ? ) Meanwhile the children of the relatively wealthy are online at home, with family and private tutors when the school can't manage. The learning loss is- quite simply - a con perpetrated on the disadvantaged to disadvantage them further - because it offers the oppressed everything they dont need to 'get on' or compete. I say, forget the measurement - go to consequential validity. Julian PS Re the current pandemic, more broadly: Now we have found our "magic money tree" (aka the national bank) - spewing out billions into the coffers of the governing party's "mates" to keep their businesses afloat, and in many cases awash with cash that is producing next to nothing of use, and undermining the public service that we used to rely on and now desperately need - be it in health, education, ..... Check out our national disaster on "Double Down News" (eg 8 broadcasts by epidemiologist and 'prophet of doom' Prof John Ashton over the last 11 months: he saw it coming and kept telling us while our prime mnser did his best to spread the virus) - neoliberalism has screwed us here even worse than Trump. I think our death rate currently 'trumps' the US by quite a bit. ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Coppens, Andrew Sent: 19 January 2021 20:22 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "learning loss" Hi Shirin, all ? I really appreciate this piece; it finds an immediate place in my courses this semester and condenses so many important historical and political issues. I?d like to make explicit a connection to ?summer slide,? a close cousin of ?learning loss,? with very similar deficit and colonial origins. Your and Maxine?s critiques are as relevant to SS as they are to LL. The former has some helpful and recently published psychometric critiques whose implications are complimentary ? summarized, here: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.educationnext.org/is-summer-learning-loss-real-how-i-lost-faith-education-research-results/__;!!Mih3wA!USVLn29yY_b93B-ickxkkxS6O8PgrXDKhi0WgqE-T_JiZTOs0WbcSwWW1cjp4qfL5_1U_w$ . Looking into the issue a year or so ago, nearly all of the proposed solutions I encountered to SS (taking its validity for granted) were consistent with the basic deficit logic that the more time that children and youth of non-dominant race or class backgrounds spend with their own families and communities the worse off they are, and promoted the colonial ?fix? that schooling ought to occupy more and more of these children?s days, weeks, and years. Again, many thanks. / Andrew --- Andrew D. Coppens UNH Education Dept., 330C Hamilton Smith Hall 603-862-3736, @andrewcoppens Schedule a meeting: calendly.com/acoppens From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu Date: Monday, January 18, 2021 at 12:18 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] "learning loss" Caution - External Email Dear all, Sharing an op-ed co-authored with Maxine McKinney de Royston that draws on cultural historical ideas to challenge the increasing narrative around "learning loss" and other deficit ideologies, and to center families of color as educational partners and leaders: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://truthout.org/articles/fixating-on-pandemic-learning-loss-undermines-the-need-to-transform-education/__;!!Mih3wA!USVLn29yY_b93B-ickxkkxS6O8PgrXDKhi0WgqE-T_JiZTOs0WbcSwWW1cjp4qdNzWpnSw$ ~Shirin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210120/c63f4784/attachment.html From saeed.karimi.aghdam@gmail.com Thu Jan 21 03:52:49 2021 From: saeed.karimi.aghdam@gmail.com (Saeed Karimi-Aghdam) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2021 12:52:49 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Dialectical Emergence of Language and Consciousness in Society: Interview with James P. Lantolf Message-ID: Dear all, I would like to share a link to an interview that I have conducted with James Lantolf about (second) language learning and sociocultural theory. https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://jalda.azaruniv.ac.ir/article_14132.html__;!!Mih3wA!TftyLG9osxJHlezNSMLF9dd-aHiXWEVr9UwcO_JDeIFScO4WqVnGG6im9-6wiEOLAzsRlQ$ Thanks for your attention in advance. Best wishes, Saeed -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210121/5d95dcbe/attachment.html From anthonymbarra@gmail.com Fri Jan 22 12:38:38 2021 From: anthonymbarra@gmail.com (Anthony Barra) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 15:38:38 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Helpful responses, thank you. On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:50 AM Anthony Barra wrote: > Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most > like to hear a range of responses to?" > > On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: > > *This question: "What do you think all this means? *(excerpted from > Collected Works, Vol 4) > > - ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true > uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual > expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But > a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our > representation of child development and take into account that it is *a > complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, > disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or > qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging > of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of > external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties > and adapting*" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) > > It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more > than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? > > If you have any thoughts, please share. > > Thanks, and happy new year ~ > > Anthony Barra > > > P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: > > - "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the > basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary > research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the > positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. > - All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of > the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and > differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that > links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative > description of the child that results from existing methods. All the > methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in > comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to > the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child > personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness > that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the > normal child." (p. 98) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210122/d36c6e47/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Fri Jan 22 15:00:08 2021 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2021 16:00:08 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would add something to the discussion of the question is that much of the work done in determining the functions of the brain are based on studies of people with insults to the brain. This raises exactly the problem Vygotsky talks about in studying the development of the child whereby the child is seen as an imperfect adult. It?s not a stretch to see the obsession with standardized testing to determine learning as the same deficit approach. Or a checklist of features to characterize a category. Life is messy. Most of us won?t admit we?re lucky to be better off than someone else. Instead we defend our privilege with claptrap about free will. :) Henry > On Jan 22, 2021, at 1:38 PM, Anthony Barra wrote: > > Helpful responses, thank you. > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:50 AM Anthony Barra > wrote: > Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you most like to hear a range of responses to?" > > On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: > > This question: "What do you think all this means? (excerpted from Collected Works, Vol 4) > ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our representation of child development and take into account that it is a complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties and adapting" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) > It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? > > If you have any thoughts, please share. > > Thanks, and happy new year ~ > > Anthony Barra > > > P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: > "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. > All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative description of the child that results from existing methods. All the methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the normal child." (p. 98) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210122/d92bf241/attachment.html From anthonymbarra@gmail.com Mon Jan 25 18:43:28 2021 From: anthonymbarra@gmail.com (Anthony Barra) Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2021 21:43:28 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Henry et al, including Andy Blunden who recently weighed in to this thread as well: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8gZGW9PQfs__;!!Mih3wA!XO9Wd_hEp6bgWxqIGjtb-R2EEvT8OCqnCfvrBYU4qdlZusH_7PXRQHRDeRYNCzlk4SJkLA$ Anthony On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 6:02 PM HENRY SHONERD wrote: > I would add something to the discussion of the question is that much of > the work done in determining the functions of the brain are based on > studies of people with insults to the brain. This raises exactly the > problem Vygotsky talks about in studying the development of the child > whereby the child is seen as an imperfect adult. It?s not a stretch to see > the obsession with standardized testing to determine learning as the same > deficit approach. Or a checklist of features to characterize a category. > Life is messy. Most of us won?t admit we?re lucky to be better off than > someone else. Instead we defend our privilege with claptrap about free > will. :) > Henry > > > On Jan 22, 2021, at 1:38 PM, Anthony Barra > wrote: > > Helpful responses, thank you. > > On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:50 AM Anthony Barra > wrote: > >> Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you >> most like to hear a range of responses to?" >> >> On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now: >> >> *This question: "What do you think all this means? *(excerpted from >> Collected Works, Vol 4) >> >> - ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true >> uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual >> expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But >> a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our >> representation of child development and take into account that it is *a >> complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity, >> disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or >> qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging >> of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of >> external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming dif?culties >> and adapting*" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98?99) >> >> It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more >> than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible? >> >> If you have any thoughts, please share. >> >> Thanks, and happy new year ~ >> >> Anthony Barra >> >> >> P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above: >> >> - "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the >> basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary >> research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the >> positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation. >> - All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior >> of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and >> differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that >> links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative >> description of the child that results from existing methods. All the >> methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in >> comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to >> the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child >> personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness >> that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the >> normal child." (p. 98) >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210125/29b44d65/attachment.html From anamshane@gmail.com Tue Jan 26 07:57:40 2021 From: anamshane@gmail.com (Ana Marjanovic-Shane) Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:57:40 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fundraising for the University of Students (UniS) Message-ID: Dear members, friends, and supporters of the University of Students (UniS), We need your help! Our University of Students? needs resources such as diverse platforms, apps, and software. We may use our raised funds for the purposes of web-development, automatization of club creation, educational materials, and resources for and from our students. We need to raise about $1,000 by March 1st, 2021. Please help! Generous people like you are UniS only source of support. If you have donated, thank you a lot! You can donate using major credit cards or PayPal via: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://diaped.soe.udel.edu/dp-map/?page_id=1236__;!!Mih3wA!V_6-Nq5N_tFZylJI8JVpNZUVr6NBbpAmvnAJqRh-YtTU0OMWY73CYYK3wCnuM15UIiA1_Q$ . Also, you can schedule monthly donations: 1. Individual donation Please consider donating any amount equal or above $10 is good (less than $5 is ?eaten? by PayPal fees almost entirely): $10, $20, $50, $75, $100, $200, $500 or more. Our suggested individual donation is $50. You can use any major credit card if you do not have a PayPal account. 2. Institutional donation Institutional donations are welcome, and we are happy to provide receipts. The suggested institutional donation is $100. If you can?t donate at this time, please, do not feel guilty. Please contribute by writing and reading our Facebook Page https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.facebook.com/groups/universityofstudents__;!!Mih3wA!V_6-Nq5N_tFZylJI8JVpNZUVr6NBbpAmvnAJqRh-YtTU0OMWY73CYYK3wCnuM16L0fCCng$ , creating your own edu-club, and just wishing us well. Please visit the University of Students website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://universityofstudents.org__;!!Mih3wA!V_6-Nq5N_tFZylJI8JVpNZUVr6NBbpAmvnAJqRh-YtTU0OMWY73CYYK3wCnuM16yHOUSew$ . If you have any questions, please contact us: org@universityofstudents.org Please forward our request to whoever you think might be interested in the University of Students and support this enterprise. We would highly appreciate your help, The University of Students Org Committee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210126/c2feb193/attachment.html From julie.waddington@udg.edu Wed Jan 27 01:21:40 2021 From: julie.waddington@udg.edu (JULIE WADDINGTON) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 09:21:40 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Dialectical Emergence of Language and Consciousness in Society: Interview with James P. Lantolf In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Saeed, Many thanks for sharing this interesting interview/article. Please do keep us posted about the SCT-L2 Working Group meeting in Pamplona mentioned at the end of the interview. Best regards, Julie ________________________________ De: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] en nom de Saeed Karimi-Aghdam [saeed.karimi.aghdam@gmail.com] Enviat el: dijous, 21 / gener / 2021 12:52 Per a: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Tema: [Xmca-l] Dialectical Emergence of Language and Consciousness in Society: Interview with James P. Lantolf Dear all, I would like to share a link to an interview that I have conducted with James Lantolf about (second) language learning and sociocultural theory. https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://jalda.azaruniv.ac.ir/article_14132.html__;!!Mih3wA!QEBmH-d1ZS3U_Z1xZZqeMYKymDduc6VFQN7RHR7Wnxgjw1W3T8oFLhzH5GmsU10OWKG46g$ Thanks for your attention in advance. Best wishes, Saeed -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210127/f49dbea8/attachment.html From fabio.militopagliara@gmail.com Wed Jan 27 12:42:25 2021 From: fabio.militopagliara@gmail.com (Fabio Milito Pagliara) Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2021 21:42:25 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Dialectical Emergence of Language and Consciousness in Society: Interview with James P. Lantolf In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you very much Il gio 21 gen 2021, 12:55 Saeed Karimi-Aghdam ha scritto: > Dear all, > > I would like to share a link to an interview that I have conducted with > James Lantolf about (second) language learning and sociocultural theory. > > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://jalda.azaruniv.ac.ir/article_14132.html__;!!Mih3wA!TyHZPcg4QJFgyi_Jlyq93RIFMOW0q6-_ylOGPs6GIZpvI6fm5wox3OTvgqu-yOlC1NI-aQ$ > > > Thanks for your attention in advance. > > Best wishes, > > Saeed > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20210127/aea29660/attachment.html