Re: CHAT & Vygotsky?

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Thu, 11 Jul 1996 17:43:19 -0700 (PDT)

Continued thoughts sparked by Barbara's seconding of Betty's suggestion
for explaining acronyms. They are thoughts that arose in a much early
note by one of Judy's messages that seemed to imply that there was
some sort of orthodox, known "CHAT perspective" that was to be learned
about in this discussion.

I hope it is clear to everyone reading this list that there is no
one orthodoxy about something called Cultural Historical Activity
Theory. It is an impulse, not an orthodoxy.

I participate and benefit from these discussions because they are
medium in which I can encounter all sorts of interesting provocations
for me to think more deeply about my never-adequately-examined
presuppositions, half-beliefs, and values. I was not formally
educated in the form of inquiry that I now engage in; it is a way
of doing scholarship that has opened me up to all sorts of possibilities
and complexities in trying to understand human development.

My concern is this: If people who hear about xmca and join presuppose
there is an orthodoxy, that there are experts who KNOW, they are
likely to think that when these experts us an acronym, they might be
doing it to distance other participants. But if they presuppose that
there are no experts, just people who have been in the conversation
longer, and in all long conversations, people create new meanings which
they create convetional symbols to index, then they might interpret
an acronym like CHAT to be what all unfamiliear lexical items are,
invitations to form concepts. And in forming those concepts, and
in communicating the concepts they form, they will educate the community
about itself and the world it mediates.

I have yet to meet an expert on xmca and I am all the time encountering
invitations to form concepts, and in this I believe I am in good company
here.
:-)
mike cole