Re: Re(2): Re(2): marx & hegel

From: Bill Barowy (wbarowy@mail.lesley.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 22 2000 - 13:49:01 PDT


Nate,

Not that I think my use of the word 'collective' in that sentence is highly
deliberate, and needs to be explained -- but I would like to see how my use
of the term compares with others. Certainly many tests are designed to
measure individual performance. Thereafter the results are aggregated and
transformed into statistics representative of no individual, but rather of
the population of those who participated in the test. "Norm",
mathematically meaning an average, is a measure of the performance of the
population. One can pick out any individual's performance measure on a
test, however, and compare it to the average.

Students taking a normed test (i.e. NAEP) are not engaged in joint
(collaborative) actions to obtain a measure of their group performance
(with the common object, say, of achieving a high score), and this is how I
think you are using "collective" -- to mean joint, collaborative -- but I
wish not to misinterpret you and welcome your comments. I have been using
the term 'collective' more loosely to refer to people who are engaged in
the same activity (i.e. test taking) regardless of the degree of their
collaboration. There are issues of what constitutes the 'same activity'
that arise with Lave and Wenger's LPP, or what Barker has termed
'penetration' - the latter best exemplified by a basketball game in which
the players have greater penetration into the activity than the fans.

But testing cannot go on without test taking subjects, and I have not
thought through what it means for a test taker to be 'uncooperative' in the
sense of not participating mindfully and honestly.

Actually -- what I'm interested in is whether individual vs. populational
performance is an example of dialectical processes at work.

bb

At 01:58 PM 6/22/00 -0500, Nate Schmolze wrote:
>Bill said,
>
>"The question you raise for me is whether defectology can be described
>dialectically as a contradiction between individual performance and normed
>(collective) performance. Same on the other side of the curve -- "gifted".
>"
>
>
>Bill,
>
>I am curious why you referred to norm tests as (collectivist) performance,
>they seem to me individualistic at their core.
>
>The test could be both as in the "unit of analysis" being a classroom,
>school, nation etc. but it seems to me norms is a practice of
>individualization rather than collective performance as my daughter's recent
>normed results attests to.
>
>I think Vygotsky's use of the collective is important here in which it
>functioned as sign language or braile for a child with a "cognitive
>disability". We would not (maybe we would bilingual children for example)
>test the deaf or blind child without the use of sign language or braille.
>
>I guess I am curious what about a "norm" would make it collectivist as
>oppossed to individualistic.
>
>Nate
>
>
>At 10:16 AM -0500 6/22/00, Rosa Graciela Montes wrote:
>>LSV's interest in "defectology" or "pathology". Do these observations
>>transfer easily to other aspects?
>
>Yes, Rosa. While the science education's 'misconceptions' research is now
>viewed by many to be problematic, those studies did indicate the importance
>of recognizing the contributions of student's prior knowledge and
>interpretive/constructive processes in learning.
>
>The question you raise for me is whether defectology can be described
>dialectically as a contradiction between individual performance and normed
>(collective) performance. Same on the other side of the curve -- "gifted".
>
>bb
>
>
>
>
>
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Bill Barowy
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html



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