Its never too late to be the first in an xmca discussion, Phillip! That is
the (anti?) virtue of a global conversation.
Since you take as your example our 5th D activities, I can try to answer
conceretely in that context. For a more general solution to issues of
the relation of motives to action/activities I defer to those clearer on
such matters than I am. I'll try to answer in two parts, related to two
points you raise:
1.you write:
'Bumping into one
another', 'laminated', and so on. All of them left me dissatisfied because
they involved conceptualising the systems as interacting, maybe becoming
integrated, but still retaining separate identity. But how can such
metaphors satisfy the mingling that occurs? The intermediation? the
remediation? and the resulting reframing of the whole AND the parts?
Yep, the metaphors are crude alright, but so is -- thus far!-- our
analysis of interinstitutional relationships. Part of the issue here
is WHAT becomes integrated. UCSD is not about to integrate with the
boys and girls clubs of America or any of its branches. It (or part of "it"-
-- the level of collectivity in a university's operations doesn't much
impress me at least when it comes to interaction with its surrounding
communities) does want some level of interaction, partly for institutional
reasons (I have to call them motives in this context!) having to do with
rhetoric about land grant colleges and their obligations to tax payers.
Bumping into may be a lousy metaphor, and laminating in this arena is
more of the airplane modeller's glue variety, but for me, for the person
teaching the class at present, for club staff, and for the somewhat higher
levels of the club hierarchy, "bumping into" speaks a whole lot more to
me than the convergence of rivers.
I should note that only when the bumping turns to grinding do I see this
being experienced as bumping at the level of the kids, though at a micro
level, that is visible too.
2. About the "motives" of the stakeholders. You write:
For example in the 5D at the Solana Beach Boys'
and Girls' club the children arrive to 'play', while the UCSD sponsors of
the project have created an environment for 'learning' which is tacit rather
than explicit. Why do the researchers have to indulge in this benign deceit?
Both 'playing' and 'learning' have the biological function of creating
Nate's "increased potential for acting in the world". The distinction is a
cultural-historical construct, and so requires a reframe in a 5D site.
One of the difficulties I have always had in trying to describe/work with
the 5thD at the level of design of the "the activity" (the time that the
kids, undergrads, researchers, local staff, visitors meet) is that it was
deliberately designed to MIX leading activities a la Leontiev et al. That
is, affiliation, play, learning, peer interaction, and work were built into
what was going on from early on. In the past two years, facing the sudden
attention to afterschool by monied state authorities, we have had to fight
to legitimate the important role of play. The tugs at pulls at different
sites between different leading activities in this sense is a central
dynamic in all the University-Community partnerships on which "the activity
itself" depends for support.
It is this same dynamic interplay, I believe, that leads to the phenomena
you point to such as students who are clearly not doing this "for the grade"
(hell, our class is more work than any 1 1/2 comparable classes they could
choose from!) and the kids are not doing it just to get a higher score
on a computer game (though at time that is certainly operative). Rather, from
the collective effort at creating a zoped for kids after school, developmentally
valued (by the participants whose efforts go into the creation) emerge.
The phenomenon awaits appropriate description.
In this regard, it drives me nuts that (say) three kids and two undergrads
can spend 1 1/2 hours deeply engaged in the mixed environment of the 5thD
playing games, writing hints, arguing about whether Britany Spears is a
new instantiation of Madonna, all of which seems like they are engaged
together in "an activity" and the fact that several such groups are doing
the same thing, in loose interaction with each other, which, I think, is
supposed to be what one refers to as "the 5thD activity." And this all
leaves aside the fact that the whole thing depends upon the supra collaboration
of minimally coordinated organizations.
Phew!
mike
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