Phillip White said:
i'm still wondering about David's trilogy of a crossdisciplinary framework
- habituation, conceptual construction, and enculturation.
no problem with habituation. that's a core metaphor for much of
elementary school (an observation, not admiration). i keep on struggling
to look at conceptual construction and then enculturation. it almost
seems as if there's a hierarchical progression here - rote memory,
application to problemsolving, systhesis and transformation. yet, i'm
sure i'm mistaken that David intended this. ...
____________
Right you are, Phillip.
The crossdisciplinary project is primarily practical. My goal is to
articulate the discrete metaphors of learning that ground our cultural
common sense and our research endeavors, and to fashion associated
pedagogies. My point, pedagogically, is that the teaching practices that
subserve these varied notions of learning are mutually incoherent--i.e.,
there is no unitary pedagogy that incorporates these agendas seamlessly:
Any pedagogical formulation that promises a unitary vision of "good
teaching" misleads teachers. So any attempt to find a unity in this
diversity (as in your proposed hierarchy) contradicts my practical
intentions for crossdisciplinarity.
This doesn't mean that I'm not also interested in pursuing broad
theoretical overviews and perspectives on learning. But I'm not convinced
these metaphors provide a suitable grounding for theoretical syntheses. In
particular, I'm not sure that each occupies a distinct level from which to
think about problems of emergence and reduction. (See Keith Sawyer's brief
but insightful analysis of constructivism and sociocultural theory in his
article in the latest issue of Human Development.)
David Kirshner
Sawyer, R. K. (2002). Emergence in psychology: Lessons from the history of
non-reductionist science. Human Development, 45, 2-28.
PS. Thanks, Keith, for sending the reprint.
_____________________
David Kirshner
Department of Curriculum & Instruction
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge LA 70803-4728
(225) 578-2332 (225) 578-9135 (fax)
dkirsh@lsu.edu
http://www.ednet.lsu.edu/tango3/coedirectory.taf?
_function=detail&Faculty_uid1=135&Users_uid2=135&_UserReference=59F4B47FBE3415E138CD68B2
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