Re: conflict in the ZPD

Katherine Goff (Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu)
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 08:56:07 -0600

xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu,External writes:
>We tend to assign dominant agency to the senior partner, and so
>initiative
>and well-formed goals; we then see divergence as 'resistance', but if we
>give equal agency to the junior partner, then divergence implies an
>active
>impulse in another direction, not mere reaction against (though this
>exists). It trivializes divergent projects to see them solely in terms
>of
>their accomodation or resistance to our own projects.

The power relations (implied or otherwise) in descriptions of the ZPD
have always bothered me. My son's first grade teacher struggled the
entire year with trying to teach a child who was "obviously bright" but
so unwilling to cooperate in the social activities of reading groups
and coloring sheets and math bingo, etc. At the end of the year she
admitted that she had learned a lot from Max. Was he the senior
partner? Was he even aware of her learning process? What did he learn
from their interactions? I think teaching/learning is relationship
dependent, but I never feel comfortable with claims about what's being
taught or who is doing the teaching and who the learning.

Kathie

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