Thanks a lot, Philip, for you message. You wrote,
> Yet, even within xmca discourse, when it's convenient the problem
> is situated in the student.
>
> As one writer to xmca earlier wrote - something to the effect -
> "it's the students who don't get it that complain because they got a grade
> they didn't like."
>
It seems it should be easier for us, many of which are (university)
teachers, to discuss education. But it may be not the case. Professor is
both teacher and student.
There were a lot of jokes in the former Soviet Union about Gorbachev's
slogan "You should start perestroika from yourself." The humorous part of
this statement is that it is not very reflexive -- it almost annihilate its
meaning by becoming a command (it is similar like the statement "I'm
modest!"). Unknown monk expressed Gorbachev's idea much better:
Changing The World (Unknown monk, 1100 A.D.)
When I was a young man, I wanted to change
the world. I found it was difficult to
change the world, so I tried to change my
nation. When I found I couldn't change the
nation, I began to focus on my town. I
couldn't change the town and as an older
man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an
old man, I realize the only thing I can
change is myself, and suddenly I realize
that if long ago I had changed myself, I
could have made an impact on my family. My
family and I could have made an impact on
our town. Their impact could have changed
the nation and I could indeed have changed
the world.
I think that a sociocultural theory is a package deal of the sociocultural
practice, in which the theoretician is involved. It may be too extreme to
say that the more we are sociocultural in our practice of teaching and
research (and life?), the more we are sociocultural in our thinking. What
do you think?
Eugene