Dear Ana, Gordon, Ricardo,
Several brief notes to your interesting comments:
- I agree with Gordon, that theory is a tool. It is especially true about Vygotskian theory, because of methodology aspect. It seems to me that CHAT conceptual maps can be constructed and internalized through the ongoing process of critical questioning of the foundational ideas. CHAT methodology is also a very powerful methodology of learning. When we had to design a program for teacher education in Russia for the teachers who would teach Davidov/El'konin curriculum, we faced the challenge of designing the learning activities for teachers to internalize the main ideas, i.e. ZPD, ascending from abstract to concrete, mediation, leading activity, theoretical vs.empirical concepts, El'konin's theory of age, etc.. Through various experiences, we learnt that the most powerful experience of teachers' learning occured when the methodology of learning was the same as the methodology of CHAT. CHAT was a theoretical tool as well as the content and the process of learning.
- I share Ricardo's concerns regarding the inprisonment of Vygotskian concepts in the cages of "right" interpretations. I also witnessed some of such attempts at ISCRAT. I think it is a complex issue, because we do have a value of reconstruction the origins of concepts and building the history of development. However, it seems to me the building the history and ongoing questioning of the classical conceptual frameworks of CHAT is different from looking for the true understandings, fundamental and universal truths .
And, of course, ongoing dialogue or polylogue is essential for the development of the community.
What do you think?
Elina
Ricardo Japiassu wrote:BLOCKQUOTE { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}DL { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}UL { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}OL { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px}LI { PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px} "While I think it is interesting and worthwhile to try to understand Vygotsky's "intentions" when he formulated this kernel, I don't think we should restrict ourselves to that enterprise." G. Wells I, personally, second you Gordon. I think it is very "dangerous" to advocate any attempt to fit the "right" meaning of something - like in someway did M. Elhammoummi and Newton Duarte in the symposium "Vygotsky, a radical psychologist" at 5th ISCRAT. At least, that was my feeling after a first reading of their papers presented there. "Dangerous" in the sense of the existence of an alleged only one "God" and only one "heard". This kind of thing really scares me and seems a kind of revolting intolerance according to my currrent reading-und
erstanding of the world. Although, as you have pointed to, it is worthwhile to recognize the philosophycal frame within which LSV develloped his thinking and ideas. So, since THIS perspective, and only according to it, in my view, Elhammoummi's and Duarte's - and also Toomela's - writtings have ideed some value. I got myself thinking on what Vygotsky said in Psychology of Art related to the concept of "catarsis" of Aristotle. He explicitlly say that his goal was not trying to discover the kernel meaning of it, but to lend it some sense in the frame of the theory of Art he himself was attempting to expose along that book. "Catarsis" to LSV reffers to the very specifically and typically human reaction to an esthetical stimullus mediated by artistic - or cultural -signs. It is, according to him, a word used to reffer the complex reaction that results from the shock between two conflicting feelings mediated by conscious activity. "The most important issue is to keep the dialogu
e going, isn't it?" G. Wells Yes. I believe in the very importance of dialogue - and "catarsis". Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu
Professor da Universidade do Estado da Bahia-Uneb X
http://www.ricardojapiassu.pro.br
"To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail."
M.Postman Conscientious Objections,1988, p.33
Elina Lampert-Shepel
Chairperson, General Education Department
Globe Institute of Technology, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10007
212 349 4330 ext. 114 (w)
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