[Xmca-l] Re: Direct link to article for discussion

[Larry Purss]

Jennifer and Rebecca

I read your article with anticipation, and was reflecting on my level of
interest as a counselor working in public schools.
The central question posed in your title,
"Where do we locate social and emotional learning in schooled
environments?" is a profoundly relevant question within historically
situated *school discourse"

I want to open my comments by referring back to an article Jennifer wrote
ten years ago which shows this question continues to remain relevant over
time.
Jennifer wrote,
"Indeed, we are participant observers of the processes of the human mind;
ourselves always embedded within it and experiencing the world filtered
through it. And to make matters more complicated, the cognition and emotion
couplet is ITSELF a moving target., changing through the use of cultural
tools, creating new tools, and shifting again; a messy and potentially
regressive process, rather than a linear or teleological one....What we are
actually dealing with [theory of consciousness] is both a revolutionary
(Vygotsky, 1978) and a dialogical (Bahktin, 1981; 1986) process of
cognitive/emotive/discursive change over time. A process fuelled by the
activity of human agents engaged with cultural tools and situated through
social and historical relations"

The current article continues this quest tracking the elusive moving target
of the cognition/emotion couplet which is now being played out across all
public schools. I want to explore the second section of the article which
clarifies and foregrounds the conceptual terms [unity, word meaning,
perezhivanie,] as units of analysis I also want to explore the third
section which extends the cognition/emotion couplet through exploring
feeling, emotion, and affect and *verbal feeling.
However, I know others will return to these critical aspects of the paper,
therefore I will foreground section one which opens the dialogue on the
current ways social/emotional learning is approached as a subject matter.

Jennifer and Rebecca mention that social-emotional learning has been met
with a strong critique on multiple fronts. I wonder if any of these fronts
are visible within public school settings, or if the fronts are mostly
visible within university departments?
I experience conversations in schools focusing on *skills* and *programs*
to teach these discrete skills. The article mentions by 2003 there were
over 200 distinct programs had been created to ADDRESS SEL, with multiple
moving targets [reduce bullying, teach character education, or as stand
alone programs to teach SEL skills.
an alternative approach, as mentioned in the article is the implied
assumption that by Kindergarten social emotional development SHOULD be well
developed so is NOT a relevant subject matter for K to 12 schooling.

I would concur that these are the typical responses to address or answer
"Where do we locate social-emotional learning in school environments?"
However, this article does offer another approach which I hope we will
explore further. I want to quote the last paragraph of section one:
"Clearly there is a need to develop approaches to social and emotional
education that reduces the emphasis on behavioral skill sets and individual
assessments and, instead, develop methods for linking social and emotional
IDEALS with social practices in schools (Hoffman, 2009) Among other things,
this would require "connecting the language of research more REALISTICALLY
and more humanely with the language and EXPERIENCE of emotion in teaching
and learning, and not substitute one for the other" (p.546). IN this
context of schooling, a Vygotskian perspective may be a much needed and
radical response"

I highlighted the word *ideal* as this word implied SHARED IDEALS. On page
202 of the article Jennifer and Rachael emphasize Vygotsky saw schools as
locations to develop not only *competencies* but also DISPOSITIONS TOWARD
ETHICAL ACTIONS. At the CENTER of THIS process was the social environment
of the school as the location for social emotional learning.
I see this appeal to SHARED IDEALS and the question of how we collectively
develop SHARED EXPLICIT IDEALS as a central question which Jennifer and
Rachael address and give their "answer".
If the arena or stage is not individual virtue, or collectively FORMED
rules, but rather developing *dispositions* how do we traverse the notions
of classroom teacher *autonomy* .

I want to acknowledge my appreciation for opening this space to explore
this shifting, turning, crisscrossing theme of the unity of cognition &
emotion. The heart of the paper is conceptual elaboration and clarity and
the article does this brilliantly.
However, I chose to highlight the actual current historical situation in
many schools.

Larry





On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 3:53 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> For those of you who missed it, here is the article for discussion on the
> xmca website.
> mike
>
>
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/pdfs/20-3-vadeboncoeur.pdf
>