Re: [xmca] Happy New Year, dots of red wine and thoughts on the line of development

From: JAG (joe.glick@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 03 2007 - 10:12:50 PST


Happy New Year to all:

I've begun to think about the ZPD as having been too much defined in
educational terms - as "movement" from here to there (intellectually).
I think that the essential feature of the ZPD could/should be the
"dialogicality" of it. From a dialogical perspective it is not one
person moving another to a place where they were not, but rather an
engagement between two people - both of whom must be affected by that
engagement. I think that the original Doise and Mugny studies pointed
in that direction.

Perhaps I am speaking too much from a U,S. perspective but the way
that Vygotsky was "reintroduced" in 1978 in "Mind in Society" shifted
a great deal of focus on to ZPD as education. It was only later, in
1985 when Wertsch began to introduce the dialogical notion of the ZPD
(seconded, interestingly in the introduction to "Vygotsky: The Social
Formation of Mind" by Zinchenko and Davydov) who seemed to resisting
the shift of the interpretation of Vygotsky in the direction of
Activity Theory - with not enough Bakhtin - too much object related
action and not enough consciousness. Of course, that was 1985 when
consciousness could more comfortably take its place along with
activity.

>From a dialogical view of the ZPD the question of "who benefits"
shifts to other questions such as "What are the conditions of
participation, either focal or peripheral?" "What does it mean to have
a dialogic encounter - especially when the institutional framework is
(too often) seen as education of the unknowing by those who know - or
think they do." In sum the issue might be framed as "how do you create
a dialogical space in places where everything is working against it."

Perhaps it requires both the wonderful wine and some of that wonderful cheese.

Joe Glick

On 1/3/07, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
<Anne-Nelly.Perret-Clermont@unine.ch> wrote:
> Dear All,
> I am a member of the (numerous!) red dots along the Alpine lakes and
> Rhein Walley (I suppose, but I am not sure because this map is not as
> precise as the satellite maps. If it were you might discover that the
> red color is due to the good red wine of our local vinyards in the area,
> I suppose).
> I enjoy the discussions but very seldom manage to pop in as they go very
> fast and my administrative duties seem to slow me down terribly. I would
> enjoy coming back on the effects of peer interactions and the learning
> that can occur also with less advanced peers, as already described in
> the late '70. It raises a lot of questions about the ZPD: why would the
> development follow a predictable line? For psychological (Piaget would
> say for logical) reasons? Or for cultural reasons? If the direction of
> the line of development is largely given culturally then the credibility
> of peers in different cultural contexts might be quite different . In
> could be the social milieu at large, but also the micro context created
> by gender when the interacting peers are same sex or note (as Charis
> Psaltis's beautiful dissertation in Cambridge has shown).
> Is development following a line...is another questions. What is/are the
> relevant dimension(s) on which we project it to see line(s)? How does
> the adult who reaches in the ZPD of the subject know that he is bringing
> the subject "next step" (on the line)?
>
> I'd like to hear you Aleksandar tell us more on how to map human
> cultural tools. Including those tools can make life livable in difficult
> situations. And what do they have to do with devlopment.
> Best greetings,
> Anne-Nelly
>
> Prof. Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
> Institut Psychologie et Education
> Faculté des Lettres et Sciences humaines
> Université de Neuchâtel
> Espace L. Agassiz 1 CH 2000 Neuchâtel (Switzerland)
> tel.:+41 32 718 18 56 fax: +41 32 718 18 51
> email: anne-nelly.perret-clermont@unine.ch
> http://www.unine.ch/psy
> http://members.unine.ch/anne-nelly.perret-clermont/
>
>
>
>
> Aleksandar Baucal wrote:
>
> > Dear all,
> >
> > Happy New Year (for us who belong to ? (sub)world it is 2007, what
> > year is for other existing (sub)worlds?).
> >
> > After some drinks I have a crazy idea. If it was possible to map human
> > genom with 3 bil. units, why it iwould not be possible to map human
> > cultural tools ...ehh...could you imagine trill of such project :)
> >
> > Anyway, I wish you happy and cheerful New Dialogical Year whatever
> > number it is on your calendar :)
> >
> > Warmest greeting from small red dot from Belgrade
> > Aleksandar Baucal
> >
> > Cathrene Connery wrote:
> >
> >> Greetings colleagues,
> >> Just a quick hello from Central Washington University in Ellensburg,
> >> Washington. I'm not sure if I'm a dot on the map yet, but thought I'd
> >> introduce myself. Thanks to Ana, I started receiving xmca e-mails about
> >> a month ago. It has been refreshing to read everyone's dialouge. A
> >> powerhouse of energy collectively represents the members of this
> >> listserve!
> >>
> >> Just a little about myself......I fell in love with Vygotsky in '89 when
> >> reading Thought and Language at Illinois while pursuing my first
> >> Master's degree. This past May, I graduated from the University of New
> >> Mexico with a doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies
> >> focusing on Bilingual / TESL Education. It was an honor to have Vera
> >> John-Steiner chair my committee. Emergent biliteracy, multi-modal
> >> meaningmaking, and teacher education reform on behalf of culturally and
> >> linguistically diverse children remain my great interests.
> >>
> >> My best wishes to you and your families for the upcoming year. May you
> >> experience peace, joy, and good health.
> >> Todo lo mejor (All the best),
> >> Cathrene
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> M. Cathrene Connery, Ph.D.
> >> Assistant Professor of Bilingual & TESL Education Central Washington
> >> University
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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