xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
Victor wrote:
>Thank you, Diane, for your message! I think we both (as well as most of
>the
>people on the list) agree that all activities (as well as actions and
>operations) are always social. What I fail to see is how it leads to the
>conclusion that activities are collective and actions are individual. On
>the one hand, actions (and even operations) can also be collective. On
>the
>other hand, claiming that individuals can only participate with their
>actions in collective activities basically means that individuals have no
>genuine motives.
>
the assertion of genuine motive is important to me - because as a
classroom teacher (i know Nate, that may place me in a suspect category of
culturally privileging individuality over community) i am constantly
struck by the on-going negotiation i'm engaged in when working with my
eight year / nine year old students. While i may indeed be the more
experienced and nominal leader of the classroom, what plays out is totally
different and what i see is that i'm a peripheral participant negotiating
the goals of the classroom just as much as any other student.
in the following is a lengthy chunk of field notes - which demonstrate i
think, just how much individuals (my students) in a community activity are
just as concerned in achieving their own personal goals as the more expert
individual (me) is in seeing that they achieve particular socially
sanctioned goals (reading comprehension and the acquisition of English).
it's lengthy, so those not really interested better delete now.
Then I met with Julio, Maria, Lupita, Luisa and Rosa. Julio read page 22
of “School Mural” with no miscues whatsoever. I decided to focus then on
vocabulary. What’s a reporter? I asked Maria. Maria, some who takes
picture. Luisa, doesn’t he write the story for the newspaper? We talked
about this, until I got a definition that a reporter is someonee who
writes a story for a newspaper, television or radio. Then Maria said,
it’s not birdwalking that i'm doing, but how did the world become? I was
startled by the question. I was already confused by the subtle forms of
chaos that seems to appear like unexpected wind eddies. I confirmed that
this was indeed the question, that she did want to know how the world came
to be. And so I posed the question to the group. I was also wondering,
should I really talk about this question? Wasn’t this just indeed
bird-walking. It certainly wasn’t about the mural as far as I could see.
So I posed the question to the group, and Lupita immediately asked
enthusiastically, If the world goes around, why don’t we fall off? And to
thank Rosa thrust her hand up into the air and declaimed, I know! I know!
I know that answer! Wait, wait, I said. First, let’s go to Maria’s
question and then we’ll come back to this question of Lupita’s. And I’m
thinking, what’s going on here? Where are all of these questions coming
from? What is happening here? Am I supposed to control this group, or
not? And again I put the question out to the group. Lupita says god made
the world. Julio says he doesn’t know. Luisa says that god made the
world. Rosaa is too excited about knowing the answer to Lupita’s question
about why we don’t fall off the earth that she passes. And suddenly Rosa
responds to Lupita in Spanish. And I interrupt Rosa to remind her that
we’re in an English only space during reading instruction. But, Maria
burst out rapidly in Spanish. Luisa laughs at her, and says in Spanish,
English only! English only!. I laugh, and say to Maria, remember, we’re
in an English-only space. So Maria attempts to answer her original
question, where did the world come from. She struggles to form the
sentences in English. Her eyes look upward and search about. My uncle
told me that two stars… and here she falters. She looks confused. She
begins in Spanish and then stops. Luisa looks at her and says, crashed.
Yes, says Maria, that two stars crashed. I repeat it all back to her.
Your uncle says that two stars crashed together and made our world? Yes,
agrees Maria. Well, I continue, I’ve never heard of that explanation
before. That’s new for me. But, I’m still confused and disoriented by
this turn of events, that we’re struggling with questions of cosmology.
Okay, I continue, what about Lupita’s question? Rosa nearly explodes out
of her seat. I’ve never seen such animation. I am always positioning
Rosaa in the center of the group so that she is a part of it, otherwise
she sits behind everyone and drifts off. But here, she’s pounding her
chest rapidly twice, raises her hand, hits herself again twice, raises her
hand, hits herself again twice, and raises her hand, all the while saying
I know. I know. I know. And so, laughing, hitting my own chest twice, I
ask Rosa to tell us. And she’s nearly at a loss of words. It floats, she
says. The world floats. And she moves into Spanish. English, we all
say. And she says, there are rings. Lots of rings and they’re all moving
around. Julio’s eyes widen. Rings? Where are the rings. And Luisa
says, yes, there are these rings, and they move around and they’re called
… Here she isn’t so sure. Rosa struggles to find the words. It’s
called. It’s called. I learn forward. Could the word be gravity, I
wonder? And so I say it, gravity? And every child exclaims YES.
Gravity, says Rosa. That’s what it is. It keeps us on the ground. And I
think of a recent list-serve conversation in which it was asserted that
while different cultures have different explanations, about why, they all
know that you can’t step off a cliff and not fall down. And then someone
asks, I think it is Lupita, are there aliens? On television I saw about
aliens… This is met with multiple scoffs and Luisa states flatly, I’ve
seen people on tv tricking other people. And Julio says, I think that
those men who go in rocket ships into space that they can answer our
question about aliens. And I wonder how much I want to talk about sources
of information and how we can tell about what is and isn’t reliable. And
I feel overwhelmed, and I ask Migdaly to read page 23 to us. And now
typing up these field notes, I wonder what exactly it was that was
happening?
However, it is clear to mean that individual agency is strongly shaping
the socio-cultural activity here - and some of the historical sources
are clearer than others - but each individual is clearly shaping and
attempting to control the direction of the group activity, even though i
the great teacher has very specific learning goals.
and so in the words of Eugene M. What do you think?
phillip
>
>
* * * * * * * *
*
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
third grade teacher
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.htm
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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