[Xmca-l] Re: Email Format Conventions

Ed Wall ewall@umich.edu
Sun Aug 17 11:38:16 PDT 2014 

David K.

     A minor point, but formatting may be more of the responsibility of the recipient than the sender. My email browser (Apple Mail) does not seem, in this case, to see the >" as such and indents the flow with vertical line (however, this may be unpleasant to some). At least that is what it shows at present.

Ed Wall

On Aug 17, 2014, at  1:20 PM, David H Kirshner wrote:

> David,
> Thanks for your insightful post. 
> In scrolling down below your message, to recover the context, I was faced--as all of us so often are--with the garbling effect that comes from use of the ">" program that separates out the various generations of response by inserting a new level of ">" for each new message. 
> That formatting option may serve a valuable function in case two or more authors are replying to each other with comments embedded in the prior text. But that kind of communicative format is not used very frequently, and even when it is, the line-break function of the program tends to fragment sentences to the point of incoherence (see below). 
> I suspect this format continues to be in popular use because people who use it feel a sense of comfort with the tradition of usage that trumps functionality concerns, or perhaps they just don't know how to change formats.
> Are there other reasons?
> David
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2014 9:27 PM
> To: Mike Cole; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: A request for assistance
> 
> It seems to me that no straw man is really necessary here; there are very real proponents for the argument that so-called "child-centred" education privileges the rich and keeps working class kids in the dark about the unwritten gentleman's code that surrounds "humanistic" education. I'm one, but I think that Agelika has some more important adversaries.
> 
> The first opponent to attack is Vygotsky. In his lecture on psychological development (in the untranslated "Foundations of Pedagogy"), he points out that children raised in orphanages do not develop speech as well as those who are raised in families, and he surmises that it is because that children use amongst each other is simply not as demanding as that which parents use. He also says that deaf children who are raised with siblings will not develop signing as well as those who are raised by deaf parents, and from this he concludes that ontogenesis is different from "natural"
> processes like ontogenesis and even sociogenesis, in that the final form of development has to be present and in interaction for development to take place.
> 
> The second person to attack is Halliday (as well as Ruqaiya Hasan, Clare Painter, and the whole of the systemic-functional school). Influenced by Bernstein, they argued that "child-centred" forms of education supplied only implicit knowledge of register and genre which reinforced what middle class kids already knew, but was too implicit for kids not previously exposed to the genre at home. This argument was violently rejected by Labov (who I think did not really understand it). Curiously, though, nobody rejects the idea that when a child speaks a foreign language at home, they might need more explicit help with academic genres in school.
> 
> The third person to attack is Gordon Wells, who demonstrated that differences in language surfaced already at three years old, and they were traceable to the quality of conversation that children were receiving at home. In particular, kids left with televisions or playing with younger siblings were at a definite disadvantage in comparison with children who were left with books and caring parents.
> 
> This is somehow reminiscent of the recent furore over Amy Chua's book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother". Its follow up "The Triple Package" is really about this issue as well. As usual, when there are such strong feelings on both sides, it is probable that both have something important to contribute. The real problem, and Agelika says, is that only one side is really being heard. For all its pleasant air of toleration, academic literature can be quite totalitarian.
> 
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 17 August 2014 09:43, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hmmm. Its not on the front page.     http://www.nifdi.org/about-di
>> mike'
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 5:38 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> I am not seeing any cases here where Engelmann, who is behind a lot 
>>> of
>> the
>>> direct instruction game, still, is quoted as saying that play is 
>>> useless
>> if
>>> not bad for poor/different kids although it might be find for the 
>>> loquacious middle class.
>>> 
>>> There has to be a smoking gun out there on their website or some 
>>> public presentation.
>>> mike
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 1:24 PM, William Blanton 
>>> <blantonwe@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Ageliki,
>>>> 
>>>> You might take a read of some of Madeline Hunter's writing. 
>>>> Attached is two bibs on direct instruction. You might also take a 
>>>> look an Ken Goodman's argument against direct instruction. Another 
>>>> interesting challenge
>> against
>>>> direct instruction is Cole's idea of basic literacy activity rather 
>>>> than basic liter skills.
>>>> 
>>>> BB
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 7:59 AM, Carol Macdonald 
>>>> <carolmacdon@gmail.com
>>> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Ageliki
>>>>> 
>>>>> There was an approach called DISTAR - Direct Instruction Systems 
>>>>> for
>> the
>>>>> Teaching of Arithmetic and Reading.  Their claim - 70's and 80's 
>>>>> was
>>>> that
>>>>> this was the best way to teach working class children. But this 
>>>>> was
>>>> formal
>>>>> instruction at K-6 or so. I cannot think that this could be moved 
>>>>> downwards. You can see examples on YouTube, noticing just what 
>>>>> the materials look like.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Preschool children are building up repertoires of vocabulary and 
>>>>> so
>> on,
>>>> and
>>>>> this could hardly be done in a formal way. Reading stories and
>>>> information
>>>>> books would be done in Shared Reading formats.  That's the best I 
>>>>> can
>>>> do,
>>>>> but I look forward to other views.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Bereiter..
>>>>> 
>>>>> Carol
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 16 August 2014 16:11, Ageliki Nicolopoulou <agn3@lehigh.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Dear XMCA community,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm looking for a piece of information, and I wonder whether 
>>>>>> someone
>>>> on
>>>>> the
>>>>>> XMCA list has it at their fingertips.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I'm writing something that deals with Vivian Paley's 
>>>>>> storytelling
>> and
>>>>>> story-acting practice. Among other things, that activity is an
>>>> example of
>>>>>> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist approaches to 
>>>>>> early
>>>> child
>>>>>> education--the kinds of approaches that have been getting 
>>>>>> squeezed
>>>> out by
>>>>>> preschool practices that exclusively emphasize 
>>>>>> teacher-centered,
>>>> didactic
>>>>>> transmission of specific academic skills by direct instruction.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> A lot of people think that pushing down didacted/academic 
>>>>>> teaching practices into preschool education is a good thing in general.
>>>> However,
>>>>>> there are some people who might be willing to concede that more 
>>>>>> child-centered, play-based, and constructivist might be OK for 
>>>>>> young children from educated middle class families ... but that 
>>>>>> they won't
>>>> work
>>>>>> for poor and otherwise disadvantaged children. THOSE kids need
>> direct
>>>>>> instruction to transmit "basic skills", and giving them 
>>>>>> anything
>> else
>>>> is,
>>>>>> at best, a distraction from giving them what they need for 
>>>>>> school readiness.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> My problem is this.  As we all know, a lot of people think 
>>>>>> that, and
>>>> they
>>>>>> say it in conversation, and they make written arguments that 
>>>>>> rest implicitly on that premise. In fact, this outlook is very 
>>>>>> widespread
>>>> and
>>>>>> influential. But I've found that very few of them seem to be 
>>>>>> willing
>>>> to
>>>>>> actually SAY it explicitly in their published work. I'm talking
>> about
>>>>>> academics and policymakers. There are pro-direct-instruction
>> websites
>>>>> that
>>>>>> say it pretty straightforwardly. But journals want academic
>> citations
>>>> in
>>>>>> articles, so I'm trying to find one.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> *So does anyone out there know of any published work where 
>>>>>> someone
>>>>> actually
>>>>>> SAYS that in writing?  That is, that more child-oriented,
>> play-based,
>>>> and
>>>>>> constructivist preschool practices (however they actually 
>>>>>> describe
>>>> them)
>>>>>> might be OK for young children from educated middle-class 
>>>>>> homes, but
>>>> are
>>>>>> useless or even harmful for poor and disadvantaged kids, who 
>>>>>> need
>> more
>>>>>> teacher-centered, skill-based direct instruction?*
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I figured it couldn't hurt to ask.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ________________
>>>>>> Ageliki Nicolopoulou
>>>>>> Professor of Psychology & Global Studies Personal Webpage:
>>>> http://lehigh.academia.edu/AgelikiNicolopoulou/About
>>>>>> Departmental Webpage:
>>>> http://cas.lehigh.edu/CASWeb/default.aspx?id=1430
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
>>>>> Developmental psycholinguist
>>>>> Academic, Researcher,  and Editor Honorary Research Fellow: 
>>>>> Department of Linguistics, Unisa
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>

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