Tim Lensmire
Washington University in St. Louis
On Tue, 19 Dec 1995 HDCS6 who-is-at jetson.uh.edu wrote:
>
> I have just finished reading the articles that Galina suggested (by
> El'Konin) and this message is, in part, an effort to get Isaak
> and Galina to talk about the ideal form a bit more, because of
> the way it fits into the current discussion of educational reform,
> but also because I find it to be one of the most powerful ideas
> I have come across in a long time, especially in terms of its implications
> and the inter-relationship it draws between education and society in
> general, and education and who we are in particular (as educators).
> The idea revolves around the notion (and Isaak and Galina correct
> me if I am wrong) that there is a crisis in child development (I read
> it as being around the time of adolescence) when the child needs to
> recognize that continued development might lead to ideal adulthood.
> Initially learn our activities according to ritual, as a way of
> delimiting boundaries between cultures
>
>
>
>
>
> boun
>
> activities. And that this
> process is important in development (there is a really rich
> description of how, through their relationships with objects
> children embody the actions of others as they are in turn
> embodies in the objects of the social cooperative, and the children
> use the embodiment of these objects/actions to organize their
> own behavior. But childhood reaches this point of crisis
> where the child must have an ideal to contrast against the
> real. The child must feel that through projective planning he
> or she can usurp the real and pursue the ideal. It is this
> dynamic interaction that is central to the education process.
> And it does not matter so much what the content of the ideal
> is, simply that the child is made to recognize that there is an
> ideal. This is where the ideas of justaposition and contrasts
> of real objects come from, and this is also where we find creativity.
>
> Where does this ideal come from (and remember this is a dynamic,
> so it makes no difference whether the ideal exists, simply that
> we get the child to contrast the real with the ideal)? That, I
> think is probably the most interesting part of this idea. It is
> the teacher who must act as a mediating force between the real
> world and the ideal world. The teacher then must, in some way,
> be representative of this ideal, be able to point towards it,
> and say there, that is what you aspire to, now look at the real
> world around you and see how you can pursue this (it is interesting
> that in popular culture this is so often the description of the
> "great" teacher). The ideal is not a thing, or even a cultural
> form, but an event in the child's life brought about by the
> mediating force of the teacher. If I read El'Konin right he
> is saying that the more corrupt and/or cynical our society the
> less of a chance for this ideal adulthood. The child remains
> in crisis. We can develop all the techniques we want, but if
> there is no event representing the ideal for the child, the child
> is trapped in this ritual world. There is no reform of education
> in a corrupt and/or cynical society. And every time an educator
> acceded to a corrupt or cynical demand it is, by association,
> another nail in the coffin of education (sorry for the hyperbole).
>
> Michael Glassman
> University of Houston
>
>