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RE: [xmca] Link to this month's article



Just to clarify: I don't think that the triangle itself is closed or open, just that it seems to have been developed in Engeström's Helsinki Change Lab for use in more closed systems than schools, which I find open (although policymakers in the US and elsewhere are trying to force a more narrow scope to their purpose, and not for the first time). My question concerns extrapolations of the AT triangle to new and different settings, and what I consider to be a problem of superficial adaptation of the triangle to national settings where individualism is paramount (in my case, the US). It also concerns whether CHAT and AT are synonymous, and who has the right to say who is using it faithfully, and if so, faithfully to whom (Leont'ev,  Vygotsky, Engeström, etc.). One question I've asked with regard to my studies of teacher education is, Who owns the concept? If schools and teacher education programs each talk about collaborative learning, and if teachers aren't faithful to preferred interpretations and pure notions produced by preferred theoreticians, then the teachers tend to be regarded as wrong by university critics. I've begun to question this view as a matter of mediation, given that in schools the concept gets mediated through a set of obstacles not present in universities. I don't think that any one person owns AT or CHAT and can say decisively who is or isn't a practitioner, and that's one reason I've gotten away from claiming it: I've lost track of what it is. If Engeström is right and Wertsch isn't one, then I doubt if I am either. No problem there, and I think it's simpler to abandon the framework that fight for my right to be included.

I do hope that this discussion does not get too far removed from the MCA article under discussion, which focuses on issues in teacher education. I should note that the authors do not reproduce the triangle in the article, although they do apply its constructs and terminology to questions of the problem in teacher education of navigating the conflicting "objects" of education between universities and schools, which is a longstanding problem in the profession and one that I think relates to the issues I've reviewed above.

I'll attach one paper that reviews these issues in greater depth, which I hope does not take us away from the point of this discussion, which is to talk about "Construction of Boundaries in Teacher Education: Analyzing Student Teachers' Accounts" and not my take on similar questions raised in the authors' article.

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 10:00 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Link to this month's article

I think the idea of whether the triangle is an open or a closed system that Peter raises is an important one.  I have seen people refer to the triangle (as metaphor) as being open a number of times, but much like Peter I think I have a hard time seeing it.  When talking about open systems I suppose I am talking in terms of current definition.  I think at least one of the predicates of open systems was laid out by Edward Raymond in his book about the development of Open Source, The Cathedral and the Bazaar.  Here are five characteristics of an open system I take from this book (certainly not exhaustive, and with the help of some other writers on the subject).

1)      Put information online (openly available) as early and as often as possible (there is no reason to hold information, no proprietary claims to information, an idea that has been taken to the next level by Berners-Lee 2009 with his idea of linked data.  Every information generating node should put its raw data on the www as soon as possible).
2)      Put no limitations on the pool of possible collaborators in attempts to find a solution.  Any collaborator has the potential to offer a solution that can be replicated and become part of the core data base.  This is an idea that reaches as far back as Dewey 1916 and his conception of a problem solving democratic community.
3)      It is the other nodes within an expanding network that are the most important "assets" in problem solving and they should be recognized and cultivated. The human mind's greatest resource is other human minds and the most productive posture for problem solving is connecting out rather than turning in.
4)      Proposed solutions should be simple (and stripped of individual idiosyncrasies so that what Rheingold 2002 refers to as a Smartmobs can emerge.  For example one of the benefits for Twitter (and we would argue one of the reasons for its success) is that its technology demands simplicity for any type of success.  I actually don't like Twitter for a number of other reasons, but I believe its success is very much related to its simplicity in communication.
5)      Being open to the idea that information can be used in unexpected ways.  Information is non-linear and it is possible, and productive, to look for and make connections that are not immediately apparent.
Does the CHAT triangle really speak to any of these ideas.  I think pointing back to the article, how important is it that we find a way to integrate these ideas into our teacher training?

Michael

________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of smago
Sent: Sun 9/12/2010 9:37 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [xmca] Link to this month's article

A brief response--I don't consider my remarks to involve a "quixotian attack," but rather a complaint about how the triangle has been claimed for work in which it never reappears, which I view as a problem in US researchers' efforts to align themselves with a "hot" theory without actually working within the theory. It's not Engeström's fault that the triangle has been used in this manner, but rather the fault of those who use it in superficial ways. I don't consider that to be an attack, or quixotian. It's rather a critique that I've been working out for several years and that I've thought about quite a bit.


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Yrjö Engeström
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2010 8:03 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Link to this month's article

This is a brief comment to Peter Smagorinsky's message, copied below.

Quixotian attacks on triangles have been a relatively common genre for
some years now. I usually do not get involved in those discussions
because I don't find them productive. However, I am slightly bothered
by the following sentence in Peter's message:
"Engeström, at least from what I've read, employs it [the 'triangle
framework'] as a consultant to business management to help construct
settings more conducive to collective productivity."

Since I have never done business management consulting, I would like
to know on what readings Peter might be basing his statement.

Cheers,

Yrjö Engeström

-----
smago kirjoitti 10.9.2010 kello 22.29:

> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA
> Mike Cole is heading out on vacation, and so asked me to start the
> discussion of the MCA article "Construction of Boundaries in Teacher
> Education: Analyzing Student Teachers' Accounts," which the
> electorate identified as this issue's paper for us to consider on
> the network. I didn't know that Mike actually took vacations. But I
> did agree to help launch this discussion, and help to sustain it
> once it gets going. I have done a number of studies with similar
> populations to those featured in this article-that is, I've studied
> the transition that teachers make when moving from their university
> preparation through the first year of full-time teaching. I've also
> been part of a university teacher education program in English
> Education (which is the teaching of literature, writing, and
> language; it is not ESOL) for the last two decades, and before that
> regularly mentored student teachers in my jobs at secondary schools
> in the US. So I do have some familiarity with the issues at stake in
> this article.
>
> One difference: Jahreie and Ottesen use what they call "Cultural-
> Historical Activity Theory" to motivate their work, and I once did
> too. But as CHAT has gravitated to Engeström's interpretation and
> exposition via his Triangle, I have moved away from this orientation
> and now only claim to use Vygotskian principles to formulate my
> analyses. So if I were to pose an opening question that perhaps
> might appeal to those who aren't interested in teacher education, it
> would be: What is CHAT, and which version of it do we invoke when we
> claim to use it? Cole's Cultural Psychology did include the famous
> Triangle, yet seemed very ecumenical in drawing on a host of sources
> so that it was not the centerpiece of his conception of CHAT.
> Engeström's system seems more closed to me, involving a specific set
> of terms and constructs all bound in The Triangle. Perhaps because I
> entered this field through the writing of Vygotsky and Wertsch (and
> Engeström is clear in the introductory chapter to Perspectives on
> Activity Theory that Wertsch is not an activity theorist, nor are
> Lave and Wenger), I don't equate Engeström with either Activity
> Theory or CHAT, and have disavowed that nomenclature in my more
> recent work. So what is it about the Triangle that has become so
> alluring that it has squeezed out other compelling conceptions of
> Leont'ev's reformulation of Vygotsky's work so that it shifts
> attention from the individual-in-context to the collective itself? I
> find this shift to be particularly troubling in U.S.-based
> scholarship in which the Triangle is often thrown up on conference
> screens but never put to any evident use in the research reported.
> For Scandinavians and others from nations with more collectivist
> orientations, the adoption of a wholeheartedly Marxist approach
> makes better cultural sense. And with that I will move to the
> article in question, authored by faculty members from the University
> of Oslo.
>
> Jahreie and Ottesen's article concerns the conflicting demands of
> the different settings faced by student teachers-those who are at
> the end of their university teacher education programs and beginning
> to transition to school-based teaching positions by apprenticing
> under the mentorship of a full-time teacher, ideally one who is a
> "master" teacher (but as I know from experience, this is not always
> the case). In my reading of the paper, I see an effort to use
> Engeström's terminology to account for processes involved when
> student teachers engage with established members of different
> settings that inevitably provide different "objects" for activity:
> the university with its effort to produce a particular kind of
> teacher, and the schools with their efforts to produce a particular
> kind of student. A second general question I would pose is: From
> what I can tell, most countries have settled on a very similar model
> for teacher education: general education coursework, specialized
> disciplinary course work, education course work, field experiences,
> student teaching, and then the first job. Given that this model
> seems to occur worldwide-amidst nations of different emphasis,
> orientation to learning, economic structure and process, history,
> demographics, and so on-what broader activity setting seems to
> suggest this approach as the most efficacious in the preparation of
> new teachers, regardless of national character and culture? In the
> U.S. there are presently moves afoot to provide alternative pathways
> to teaching careers, but most university programs follow this
> sequence. Apparently this process, with expected variation, is
> universal. But why?
>
> To return to a separate point emerging from this same general
> observation: The authors say (p. 231) that "The object of the
> activity for the [university Department of Teacher Education] is
> student teachers' learning trajectories. The object of activity for
> the schools, however, is pupils' learning." Actually I think it's
> more complicated than that, at least in the schools, where a primary
> problem facing educators is agreeing on the purpose of education.
> Even "student learning" is a highly contested construct, one that
> creates the sort of boundary problems elaborated in this article. In
> schools, it's often the ability to perform on tests, while in the
> "progressive" university environment, it might involve learning more
> about the self and how to express or explore it. Or something else.
> For some people, schools exist to socialize young people into adult
> roles, often based on the economic circumstances of their families.
> For others they should promote upward mobility. Or learn a trade, or
> become better informed citizens, or learn to follow authority, or
> learn to question authority, or learn how to memorize information,
> or learn how to construct knowledge, or learn how to answer
> questions, or learn how to pose questions, or do any of many other
> things. I've referred to this problem as the "mixed motive" of the
> setting of schools, one that can shift from teacher to teacher,
> which complicates the idea that the "object of activity for the
> schools is student learning." Another question thus might be, For
> complex settings like schools, how do we know what the object of
> activity is? (I'm using the authors' language here; I'm more
> comfortable with Wertsch's use of "motive" [1985] to describe the
> overriding teleological goal toward which activity in a setting is
> directed.)
>
>
> I'll pose one final question before inviting others to contribute to
> the discussion: What are the perils involved in using The Triangle
> as an a priori framework for studying activity? Engeström, at least
> from what I've read, employs it as a consultant to business
> management to help construct settings more conducive to collective
> productivity. To what degree can it then be extrapolated to other
> kinds of settings that do not share the business environment's
> relatively closed-ended motive (to produce and sell widgets, etc.)?
> When the objects/goals/motives are less amenable to agreement, how
> appropriate is The Triangle as a template for understanding
> activity, or promoting activity of a certain sort? When the transfer
> of The Triangle involves a great leap, as from a post office to a
> school, to what degree might it serve as a Procrustean Bed rather
> than a useful heuristic for understanding activity? (Procrustes was
> an Attican thief who laid his victims on his iron bed. If a victim
> was shorter than the bed, he stretched the body to fit; if the
> victim was too long, he cut off the legs to make the body fit. In
> either case the victim died.)
>
> OK, that's enough of a starter kit. Please join in and feel free to
> ignore what I've written and launch something else, or help me
> clarify my confusion regarding the questions I've raised.
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>

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