Martin wrote,
> The suggestion has indeed been made by a number of people in recent years
> that constructivist and sociocultural approaches to learning
> should in some
> way be combined. Paul Cobb, for instance, has said that "each tells half
> of a good story." At the same time, others, such as Jere Confrey, have
> pointed out that any simple combining of Piaget and Vygostky is
> not easy or
> even appropriate.
>
> What's most important in any such enterprise is, as Naoki Ueno
> says, not to
> assume with Piaget the unchanged existence of an "epistemic subject,"
> thereby 'building in' an ahistorical conception of the individual at the
> outset.
>
I'm reviewing a very interesting book by Lois Holzman "Schools for growth:
Radical alternatives to current educational models." I'd like to add her
voice to our discussion on Piaget and Vygotsky (friends again? :-)
Lois charges neo-Vygotskians (i.e., many of us) with their too much focus on
learning and knowledge building rather than on helping "children develop,
that is, to create new ways of being. We [i.e., Lois and her colleagues --
EM] have constructed as approach that is postepistemological, by which I
mean a practice that rejects the modernist belief that knowing (of any sort)
is the path to better life and/or a better world (or progress or growth)"
(p.126).
What do you think? (Lois, are you here?)
Eugene
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Eugene Matusov
Willard Hall#206G
Department of Educational Studies
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Office: 302-831-1266
Fax: 302-831-4445
email: ematusov who-is-at udel.edu
website: http://www.ematusov.com
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