Re: Re(2): confused in california

Phillip Allen White (pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu)
Sun, 11 Jan 1998 20:19:50 -0700 (MST)

On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, diane celia hodges wrote:
> I hope it didn't seem like I was attacking teachers. I was, actually,
> ineptly, perhaps, suggesting that it is not just the teachers, but thew
> whole system, which is where we agree, that it is a complex system of
> subjectivities and the social...

Yes, yes yes yes! Thank you, diane.

> >diane writes:
>
> >>then it isn't about only what the teachers "need to learn"; but about
> >>what a school community needs to put in place to make possible
> >>kinds of dialogic interactions; kinds of communicative possibilities which
> >>traditional classroom structures prohibit...

diane, I think that it is much larger than even this - it's the
community that the school is within, and it's also the university
community.

> might act as advocates or activists towards changes which are progressive,
> such as finding ways to move to dialogic interactions; less about specific
> pedagogical praxis, and more about how administrators & parents & teachers
> & children interact within a school context. Whoa. Hey. Call the Idealist
> Police! I'm slipping!! ha ha.

diane, my suggestion would be that _you_ / I don't like this term,
so I'll change it to _we_ - we of the university community - actually
begin research on our own practice... more about how administrators &
students & professors & parents & and university support staff, etc.,
interact within a university/college contest. Whoa! Hey! I'm slipping
too!! giggle - sorry.

> There must be ways to help, there must be ways to act. That was more my
> thinking.

Yep! I couldn't agree more. And I'd start - if I may be so bold
as to give out some advice - 'ways to act' may best be done by figuring
out ways to teach within one's own
immediate community. What are the best teaching practices in the
university? Who does it? Under what circumstances? Yrgo sez that
activity theory is about context. Rules - Tools - Blues (collar,
that is: labor) So, how does context and best teaching practices and
effeciency and grading and and and and work at the university level?

One rule I'd like to change is that before researchers/university
community members can research the activity of other communities, that
they first have an experiential grounding in the researching of their own
community.

Or, as Gordon Wells puts it, teacher as researcher.

there! I've tossed out my half-baked potato - next?

Or, as Eugene wonderfully puts it, "What do you think?"

phillip