Re: [xmca] Personal and systemic co-development

From: bb (xmca-whoever@comcast.net)
Date: Sun Jul 30 2006 - 19:51:41 PDT


One thing I have found certain with the passage of years is the development of regrets. I feel certain that much of the language in the proposal Cindy wrote to win the TLCF grant was what she picked up from ESD113 -- she actually has told me as much, and some of it appears in the paper. What I failed to do was to really focus down on the role of language in the interaction of ESD113 (an educational service district office in Washing ton state) and the Raymond school system via Cindy. But this can be revisitied, reanalyzed, and written over again. I think Jay Lemke's work on intertextuality, dovetailed with Yrjo's work on multiple systems of activity, is a good start to frame out this analysis, at the very least.

Last I talked with Cindy, she expressed the desire to teach children again, but if you google her full name you'll find she has a very important place helping teachers. She is *highly* facile with technology and has a wonderful way with people. I taught the systems dynamics class to her cohort and from that experience I learned of her ability to think relationally, systemically. the course offered her a way to channel what she did 'naturally' before the course. So Cindy sees a bigger picture and I think this is why she is staying at ESD113. But she does love children and can really connect.

For example, and in partial description of children's productive action, Cindy played a second role in the Lesley Univ. program -- as our lab coordinator -- making sure the teachnology was configured as needed for each class. This part of the story did not make it into the paper, because the historical analysis led up to answering the question "How did we get here?", not what happened afterward. Lesley U. had a requirement for a 'computer lab' with one workstation for each adult. But the technology that Raymond had acquired with the TLCF grant was distributed among the elementary classrooms, as Cindy had proposed. So each Friday, at the end of the school day, and before the start of the Lesley class (5:00 PM Friday) Cindy would recruit a student workforce to gather computers from each classroom and would create the lab Lesley required. On monday morning the lab would suddenly and softly vanish as the children would bring the computers back to their respective classr!
 ooms an
d set them back up. This student workforce essentially became the IT department of the elementary school.

bb

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> It was really interesting to me to read about your work with Cindy, bb.
> Thanks for proposing we read
> the paper in conjunction with discussion of Kevin's.
>
> I can see what you mean re language. There must have been a lot of dynamics
> made visibible in various
> meetings that Kevin could work his analytic expertise on.
>
> The feelings generated by Cindy having to leave her classroom in order to
> achieve her goals in the project
> must have been/must be difficult to deal with.
>
> As somone who struggles to get interaction among sites by kids to be a kids'
> motive, not the adults', it would
> be interesting if you could write a paralell paper about the growth of the
> children's productive actions and their
> products.... in your spare time (!!)
>
> What do others think?
>
> mike
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