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Re: [xmca] The strange situation
Thank you Michael. That is VERY helpful!
Helen
----- Original Message -----
From: Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca>
Date: Friday, April 16, 2010 2:55 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] The strange situation
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Hi All,
> you may be interested in this text, co-authored by Luis Radford and
> me, which addresses issues Dot raises in an upcoming editorial of MCA:
>
> Roth, W.-M., & Radford, L. (2010). Re/thinking the zone of proximal
> development (symmetrically). Mind, Culture, and Activity, 17 (4).
>
> You can download it from
> http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/PREPRINTS/17_4_108.pdf
>
> Cheers,
> Michael
>
>
> On 2010-04-15, at 9:28 AM, Dot Robbins wrote:
>
>
> Dear Helen, Martin, Larry, and All,
> Here are some comments on obuchenie from a draft of a chapter to be
> published....it draws on Jaan Valsiner's 1988 book (truly an
> excellent book), listed below...also, there is a draft of a paper
> on the Golden Key school (it is not published), if anyone wants it
> personally.Best,
> Dot
> “Obuchenie” (Unity of Teaching and Learning)
> The Russian term obuchenie offers a perfect example of the type of
> unity that is used as an ideal image within the Golden Key schools,
> and much of Russian educational theory. This term actually
> represents the unity of the teacher and pupil. “The translation
> problem of ‘obuchenie’ lies in the reference to the interdependence
> of individuals involved in the learning process that the Russian
> term implies…. ‘obuchenie’ transcends the exclusive teacher/learner
> separation that other terms carry” (Valsiner, 1988, p. 162). This
> Russian term refers to “active teaching,” with the realization that
> teachers can only teach when pupils are able to learn, and the
> teacher and learner are both “intertwined within a mutually
> dependent relationship, and the process side of that relationship
> is what ‘obuchenie’ means in Russian” (Ibid., p. 163). It is
> interesting to note that there have been many problems of
> translation of this term, and this
> problem has led to confusion about the Zone of Proximal Development
> in the West. To date, there has been no discussion in English among
> Vygotskian scholars and teachers, I know of, trying to understand
> the “unified” approach of obuchenie within the Russian, Vygotskian
> frame of reference related to the ZPD. Even within a Western view
> of the ZPD, the teacher is normally viewed as an atomistic figure
> (particularly in relation to other teachers and their own
> classrooms); and, the teacher normally functions at a level higher
> than the pupil. Within the tradition of the Golden Key schools a
> true community is formed, where all are viewed as partners, and all
> are necessary for the educational experience to be successful,
> which also includes the parents.
>
> Valsiner, J. (1988). Developmental psychology in the Soviet Union.
> Bloomington/Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
>
> --- On Wed, 4/14/10, Helen Grimmett
> <helen.grimmett@education.monash.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> From: Helen Grimmett <helen.grimmett@education.monash.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The strange situation
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 10:19 PM
>
>
> That is the very question I would ask him if I could invite him round
> for dinner!
>
> > From what I can gather, the Golden Key Schools (Elena Kravtsova) are
> working it out in the Russian context, and I'm trying to start my
> research on how teachers could use Lois Holzman's (and others) idea of
> teaching/learning as collective improvisation to see if that helps
> throwup some answers in our local context.
>
> Will be interested to hear what else you can dig up!
>
> Cheers,
> Helen
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010 12:48 pm
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The strange situation
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>
> > Good point, Helen (and Andy). I was changing my mind as I was
> > writing about obuchenie being first social, then individual. But
> I
> > still would say that LSV actually tells us very little about what
> > obuchenie looks like, or how it has the effects he attributes to
> > it.
> >
> > I will dig back into the archives, though, to see what people
> have
> > said about this.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> > On Apr 14, 2010, at 7:10 PM, Helen Grimmett wrote:
> >
> >> Interesting points Martin, but don't forget that Vygotsky used
> > the term
> >> "obuchenie" which, despite its translation as 'instruction', is
> > not at
> >> all the same as our usual English definition of instruction.
> When we
> >> think of obuchenie as the joint activity that students and teachers
> >> participate in together then it is not at all hard to think of
> >> 'instruction' as something that starts off as social and then
> > becomes> psychological.
> >>
> >> It is the failure of the English language (in not having a word
> that>> describes this joint activity of teachers and learners) that
> > requires> this extra leap of understanding Vygotsky's definition
> of
> > instruction> (or rather, obuchenie) before us English speakers
> can
> > even try and
> >> understand Vygotsky.
> >>
> >> It will be interesting to see if your students are able to put
> aside>> their previous conceptions of instruction to
> reconceptualise it
> > in this
> >> new way - or is it easier to introduce the 'new' concept of
> > obuchenie?
> >>
> >> "But it is easier to assimilate a thousand facts in any new
> field
> > than> to assimilate a new point of view of a few already known
> facts.">> (Vygotsky, Vol 4 CW, p.1)
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Helen
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> >> Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010 8:23 am
> >> Subject: Re: [xmca] The strange situation
> >> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>
> >>> My last comments about chapter 6 of T&L sank without trace like
> > a
> >>> small bead (or is it a large bead? I refer of course to p.
> 235).
> >>> But since all is quiet on the xmca front, I'll try tossing in
> >>> another pebble, and see if it skips or plunges once more to the
> >>> silent depths.
> >>>
> >>> What strikes to me when the concept of the zoped is introduced
> > in
> >>> chapter 6 is how very little it adds to what LSV has been
> >>> emphasizing throughout the book, namely that what the child
> > first
> >>> does with others they later become able to accomplish themself.
> > As
> >>> we know, LSV has gone so far as to call this the General
> Genetic
> >>> Law of Cultural Development. He has in addition put the same
> > point
> >>> in Hegelian terms (or at least Hegelian-sounding terms): the
> >>> child's speech, for example, is first in-self, then for-others,
> >>> finally for-self. In chapter 5 he has made the same point more
> >>> specifically about concept development: the pseudoconcept is
> >>> important because it seems to be a true concept to an adult.
> >>> Phenotypically the child's pseudoconcept and the adult concept
> > are
> >>> identical, but genotypically they are significantly different;
> > as
> >>> Paula has pointed out, he calls this a wolf in sheep's
> clothing.
> >>> The importance of this surface (functional) similarity lies in
> > the
> >>> consequence, LSV explains, that the adult responds to the
> > child's
> >>> use of the pseudoconcept *as though* it were a concept, and as
> a
> >>> result the child is *as it were* using concepts. And as a
> result
> > of
> >>> in effect using true concepts, the child becomes truly able to
> > use
> >>> them. In fact, when LSV first introduces the zoned, on page
> 209,
> > he
> >>> immediately "cite[s] the well known fact that with
> > collaboration,
> >>> direction, or some kind of help the child is always able to
> more
> >>> and solve more difficult tasks than he can independently. What
> > we
> >>> have here is only an example of this more general rule." He
> adds
> >>> that an explanation must go further than this, but he goes
> > further
> >>> by developing his analysis of instruction. The zoped doesn't
> > seem
> >>> to have, for him, much explanatory value. It is only a familiar
> >>> fact, an example of the more general rule that he stated as the
> >>> GGLCD.
> >>> What is new in chapter 6, IMHO, is not the zoped. LSV has
> been
> >>> talking about zopeds all through the book even though he didn't
> > use
> >>> the term. Nor is it the introduction of a new factor,
> > instruction,
> >>> that occurs in the school classroom, for by the end of the
> > chapter
> >>> LSV has stated clearly that instruction occurs in preschool
> too,
> >>> that in fact at every stage of development there is some kind
> of
> >>> instruction, each of them qualitatively different according to
> > the
> >>> child's capabilities (and needs and interests) at that stage.
> >>> No, what is truly new in chapter 6, that is to say truly
> new
> > when
> >>> the child goes to school (for this is LSV's focus in this
> > chapter)
> >>> is surely the capacity for conscious awareness and voluntary
> >>> control. Really I'm just stating the obvious here, since he
> >>> actually calls them "neo-formations"! You can't get much more
> >>> obviously new than that. LSV has emphasized the importance of
> > these
> >>> earlier in the book, but here they move to the fore. In chapter
> > 5
> >>> he has said that true concepts become possible only when the
> > child
> >>> (or actually the adolescent as he has it there, though he
> > changes
> >>> his mind in chapter 6) is able to deliberately (voluntarily)
> > direct
> >>> his attention to specific features of an object. This becomes
> >>> possible, LSV suggests in chapter 5, when the child "uses a
> > word"
> >>> to control his attention.
> >>> In chapter 6 voluntary control is again emphasized as an
> > important
> >>> part of the transition between what are now called everyday
> >>> concepts and scientific concepts, but the explanation has
> > changed.
> >>> Now LSV suggests that "instruction" in school plays a central
> > role
> >>> in bringing about tthe transition. To explain this, it helps to
> >>> consider his analysis of writing (or "written speech," he calls
> > it,
> >>> rather quaintly). While oral language is automatic, preflexive,
> >>> situated and concrete, writing requires conscious awareness of
> > the
> >>> rules of grammar and spelling, and voluntary control of their
> >>> application. Writing is abstracted both from the sounds of oral
> >>> speech and from the situation of communication.
> >>> It might seem, then, that before instruction in writing can
> > begin,
> >>> the teacher should wait for the child to develop the capacity
> > for
> >>> conscious awareness and voluntary control. But LSV insists
> that,
> > on
> >>> the contrary, it is *in and through* instruction in (for
> > example,
> >>> but not only) writing that the child develops these capacities.
> >>> Instruction and development are "knotted" in complex ways, he
> >>> proposes. They are neither identical, nor at they completely
> >>> separate. Of course this is what he has been saying about each
> > of
> >>> the various pairs of processes or phenomena that he has dealt
> > with
> >>> throughout the book. Most centrally, of course, he has argued
> > that
> >>> thinking and speaking are neither identical nor completely
> >>> separate. In either of these cases, he was said repeatedly,
> > there
> >>> would be no question of a "relationship" between the two terms,
> > and
> >>> so nothing to study and nothing to write about. (Of course this
> >>> hasn't stopped the psychologists who he has critiqued from
> > writing
> >>> a great deal, despite their inadequate conceptualizations!)
> >>> So here again we have a pair - development and instruction -
>
> > which
> >>> LSV says are related but not identical. This raises the
> question
> > of
> >>> whether this pair might be the central pair - thinking and
> > speaking
> >>> - in disguise. And certainly in instruction we have at least
> the
> >>> teacher speaking, and probably the student too. And in
> > development
> >>> we have thinking (though not alone). But I think the
> resemblance
> >>> stops there. When LSV considered speech, it was as something
> > that
> >>> starts off as social and then becomes psychological. It is hard
> > to
> >>> think of instruction in those terms. But let's not abandon that
> >>> proposal so quickly, for this consideration raises the
> important
> >>> question, what *is* instruction for LSV? We have a pretty good
> >>> sense of how he understands development, since indeed the whole
> >>> book has been telling us this. But in chapter 6 the term
> >>> "instruction" appears without a formal definition. In the same
> > way
> >>> that we end chapter 5 without being entirely sure what a
> concept
> >>> is, I think we end chapter 6 without being sure what
> instruction
> > is.>> I've asked my students to try to figure this out. What
> I
> > hope they
> >>> come up with is the notion that, whatever instruction is, it
> > must
> >>> involve a transformation in which conscious awareness and
> > voluntary
> >>> control are first in-self, then for-others, and finally for-
> > self.
> >>> That's the only formulation that would make any sense, isn't
> it?
> >>>
> >>> Martin_______________________________________________
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> >>>
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