reflection on the Leontjev's discussion

Eleine Sheppel (ellampert who-is-at igc.apc.org)
Sun, 22 Sep 1996 22:58:54 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Tim, Arne, Pentti,
and all the rest participating in the discussion on the Leontiev's
notion of activity. I guess, I am a Russian scholar, who read Leontiev
in the original.I also worked as a teacher educator with Leontjev's follower
V.Repkin in Kharkov (Ukraine) and different scholars from Davydov's
laboratory in Moscow (Russia) on the theory of Learning Activity,
which doesn't grant me knowledge of absolute truth, of course.

As every concept, the notion of activity has gone through different
transformations in the genesis of the theoretical framework of activity
theory. For example, initially, Leontiev distinguished action as a unit
of analysis, after twenty years of research act was understood as a unity
of interconnected developing actions was regarded to be a unit of analysis.

As far as I understand Leontjev, action is always goal-oriented and
operations are embedded in the "flesh" of the action and do not have
separate goals. However, in the process of activity some actions become
operations and under certain conditions, operations can be transformed
into actions again. There was a famous example (I allowed myself to
modify it a little for American context), which as V.Repkin
(his student and follower) claims A.N.Leontjev loved to tell in his lectures:
When you learn how to drive a car and you need to go to 291 Broadway, the
whole process is devided into series of actions with particular goals - to
start the car, to move a stick shift, to make U turn, etc. When you become
an experienced driver, your goal is to go to 291 Broadway and all the rest
are operations, formed in the previous activity of learning how to drive( by
the way, I am not sure that developed operation is a good translation of
"sformirovavshiesya operatsija' - operations are formed in the process of
activity, they do not develop) and are carried out automatically.
However, under the conditions of bad weather and danger, you have to make
conscious effort, your operations are transformed into actions with
the subgoals.

As far as for the question of reflection, I believe every human action
include reflection as an ideal plan of the action.

Elina Lampert Shepel
Columbia University
New York
tel:212 349 4330 (w)
718 680 1138 (h)