[Xmca-l] Re: book of possible interest
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Mon Jul 14 23:26:19 PDT 2014
Always a pleasure to read your posts, David (provided I don't get
shafted in them).
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
David Kellogg wrote:
> Well, I do hope that Helen means that "for the moment", as I have
> learned an awful lot from this book and even more from this
> discussion. You see, I am trying to tease apart two very different
> processes that appear, on the face of it, to be almost identical, but
> which also appear to have diametrically opposite developmental effects.
>
> One process is the process of getting people to feel at ease,
> confident, and happy that they understand what you are saying because
> it is actually something that is identical or at least very similar to
> what they already think. Another, almost identical, process is the
> process of "establishing ties" between a new form of knowledge and an
> earlier one. BOTH of these processes, it seems to me, occur throughout
> Helen's book, and it is easy to mistake the one for the other. BOTH of
> these processes, to use our earlier terminology, involve "establishing
> ties", but only one of them also involves breaking away.
>
> For example, at one point in the book Helen, looking back over
> the Banksia Bay PLZ data, rounds on herself for using a transparent
> piece of scaffolding to elicit the word "communicate" from a group of
> teachers. What bothers her is not that the answer itself is far too
> general to be of any practical value to the teachers, but only
> that she had it very firmly in mind, and kept badgering the teachers
> (as we all do, when we have a precise answer in mind) until she got
> it. The alternative, she points out, would be to take what she got and
> work with that.
>
> Yes indeed. But I think the main reason that would have been more
> interesting is not that it would have resulted in fewer rejections of
> teacher answers and made people more at ease, confdent, and happy that
> they understood, but rather than it would have yielded something more
> like a concrete but unconscious and not yet volitionally controlled
> example of excellence from the teacher's own practice. I almost always
> find that the actual answers I want--the "methods" I end up imparting
> to my own teachers, are already present in the data they bring me
> (because we almost always begin with actual transcripts of their
> lessons) but they are generally not methods but only moments, and
> moments that go unnoticed and therefore ungeneralized in the hurly
> burly of actual teaching.
>
> Last winter, Helen and I were at a conference in New Zealand where,
> among other eventful episodes, Craig Brandist got up and gave a very
> precise list of half a dozen different and utterly contradictory ways
> in which Bakhtin uses the term "dialogue". Because the senses of
> "dialogue" are so many and varied, people simply pick and choose, and
> they tend invariably to choose the ones that are closest to the way
> they already think. It is as moments like this that we need to remind
> ourselves that Bakhtin's "dialogue" does not, for the most part, ever
> include children, or women; that he did not "dialogue" with Volosinov
> or Medvedev when he allowed his acolytes to plunder their corpses, and
> that his love of carnival and the public marketplace does not extend
> to a belief in any form of political democracy.
>
> So I think we should start off with an understanding that what
> Vygotsky says about defect is not the same was what we now
> believe. Vygotsky, for example, believed that sign language was not
> true language, and that even the congenitally deaf should be taught to
> lip read; this is simply wrong. (On the other hand, what he says
> about spontaneously created sign languages--that they are essentially
> elaborated systems of gesture and they lack the signifying
> functions--fits exactly with Susan Goldin-Meadow's observations in
> Chicago.)
>
> And one reason I think it is important to begin with this
> understanding is this: sometimes--usually--LSV is right and we are
> wrong. In particular, I think the "credit" view of defect, or, for
> that matter, ignorance of any kind and not fully conscious teacher
> expertise risks becoming a liberal platitude--the cup is always half
> full, so why not look on the bright side of dearth? I certainly do not
> feel empowered by the fact that I know English but I do not know ASL,
> and I rather doubt that deaf people feel empowered by the opposite
> state of affairs. When I don't know something, I do not see any bright
> side of not knowing it, for the very simple reason that I can't see at
> all.
>
> Vygotsky was probably very influenced by "Iolanta", an opera that
> Tchaikovsky wrote--he certainly seems to quote it extensively in the
> last chapter of "Thinking and Speech". In "Iolanta", King Renee copes
> with the blindness of his daughter by having her shut up in a garden
> and forbidding all his subjects from discussing light, sight, color or
> anything visible in any way. Vaudemont, a knight of Burgundy, blunders
> into the garden, discovers Iolanta's secret. Iolanta convinces him
> that sight is unnecessary, but in the course of doing so, she develops
> the desire to see and choose for herself.
>
> David Kelogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
> On 15 July 2014 11:12, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> My reading of Vygotsky on 'defectology' was that the 'defect' was
> the problem in social relations, that is, the person who is
> different in some way suffers because of the way that difference
> is treated or not treated by others, not for anything in itself.
> One and the same feature could be a great benefit or a fatal flaw,
> depending on how others react to it.
> Except insofar as introducing the idea of a "credit view" is a
> move aimed at changing the perceptions and behaviours of others in
> relation to the subject, I don't think Vygotsky is an advocate of
> the mirror image of a deficit view. As I see it, he analyses the
> problem of the person being treated as deficient by means of the
> unit of *defect-compensation*. The defect (a problem arising in
> social interaction, with others) generates certain challenges
> which are overcome, generally also in interaction with others.
> This "compensation" leads to what Helen could call a "credit" and
> it is the dynamic set up between the social defect and social
> compensation which shapes the subject's psychology and their
> relation to others.
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
> Helen Grimmett wrote:
>
> I think what is unique about Vygotsky's work in defectology is
> that,
> despite the name, it is not a deficit view (in the way that I
> understand
> the term) at all.
>
> I understand the commonly used term 'deficit view' as a focus
> on what
> children are 'missing' that needs to be provided to them by
> teachers to
> bring them up to a pre-conceived idea of 'normal' for their
> age/grade level
> etc. Whereas, a 'credit view' focuses on what children are
> able to do and
> bring to a learning situation, in which, in the interaction
> with others,
> they will be able to become more able to do and 'be' more than
> they were
> before (i.e. to develop), whether this be in the 'expected'
> ways to the
> 'expected' level or in completely different ways to a variety
> of different
> levels beyond or outside 'standard' expectations. From the
> little I have
> read on defectology I think this is what Vygotsky was
> advocating - that
> despite a child's blindness or deafness etc, development was
> still possible
> if mediational means were found that made use of the child's
> credits (i.e.
> using sign language or braille so that children still had
> access to the
> developmental opportunities provided by language). So I think
> your term
> pre-abled is in fact a credit view rather than a deficit view.
>
> I was attempting to also use a credit view in my work with the
> teachers. I
> saw them as being experienced practitioners who had lots to
> bring to our
> discussions of teaching and learning, in which together we
> could see what
> could be developed (new practices, new understandings). Once
> Kay and Mike
> realised this they got on board and engaged in the process and
> (possibly
> for the first time in a long while as they both saw themselves
> [and in fact
> are officially designated as] 'expert teachers') really
> reawakened the
> process of developing as professionals. They blew off most of
> the content I
> was contributing, but they realised the process was actually about
> 'unsticking' their own development and working out new and
> personally
> interesting and meaningful ways of 'becoming' more as
> teachers, instead of
> being stuck 'being' the teacher they had turned into over the
> years. Not
> all of the teachers made this leap in the time I worked with
> them though.
> Others were either quite disgruntled that I wouldn't provide
> them with
> answers to 'fix' their own perceived deficits or patiently
> waited for me to
> go away and stop rocking the boat. From what I can gather
> though, Ann (the
> principal) kept the boat rocking and managed over time to get
> more teachers
> to buy into the process of learning from each other and
> collaboratively
> creating new practices. As we said earlier, development takes
> time as well
> as effort.
>
> All I've got time for at the moment!
>
> Helen
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr Helen Grimmett
> Lecturer, Student Adviser,
> Faculty of Education,
> Room G64F, Building 902
> Monash University, Berwick campus
> Phone: 9904 7171
>
> *New Book: *
> The Practice of Teachers' Professional Development: A
> Cultural-Historical
> Approach
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/professional-learning-1/the-practice-of-teachers-professional-development/>
> Helen Grimmett (2014) Sense Publishers
>
>
>
> <http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th
> <http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th>>
>
>
> On 14 July 2014 14:43, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com
> <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Near the end of Chapter Three (p. 81), Helen is summing up
> her experience
> with the Banksia Bay PLZ and she notes with some dismay
> that her PDers have
> "a deficit view" of their children and tend towards
> "container models" of
> the mind ("empty vessel, sponge, blank canvas"). Only one
> teacher, Ann sees
> anything wrong with this, and Helen says "they don't
> necessarily value her
> opinion".
>
> Helen finds herself rather conflicted: One the one hand,
> she says "If
> their representations of children really do represent
> their beliefs, then
> they are probably right to insist there is no need to
> change." And on the
> other, she says "My intention was never to say that their
> present practice
> was wrong, but to help them see alternative ways of
> thinking about
> children, learning, and teaching."
>
> Of course, if there is no need to change, then it follows
> that there is no
> reason to look for alternative ways of thinking about
> children, learning
> and teaching. The only reason for spending scarce
> cognitive resources on
> seeing different ways of looking at children is if you do,
> in fact, take a
> deficit view of the teachers. Ann, and the Regional
> Consultants, apparently
> do, but Helen realizes that there isn't much basis for
> this: not only do we
> have no actual data of lessons to look at, we know that
> one of the
> teachers, Kay, has been in the classroom for three decades
> (during which
> time Helen has spent at least one decade OUT of the
> classroom).
>
> While we were translating Vygotsky's "History of the
> Development of the
> Higher Psychological Functions" last year, some of my
> colleagues were taken
> aback by Vygotsky's use of terms like "moron", "imbecile",
> "idiot", and
> "cretin". Of course, Vygotsky is writing long before the
> "euphemisim
> treadmill" turned these into playground insults; for
> Vygotsky they are
> quite precise descriptors--not of cognitive ability but
> actually of
> LANGUAGE ability. But because our readership are
> progressive Korean
> teachers with strong views about these questions, we found
> that we couldn't
> even use the term "mentally retarded" without a strongly
> worded footnote
> disavowing the "deficit" thinking behind the term.
>
> I think that Vygotsky would have been surprised by this. I
> think he took it
> for granted that a defect was a deficit: being blind means
> a deficit in
> vision, and being deaf means a deficit in hearing. In the
> same way, a brain
> defect is not an asset. On the other hand, I think
> Vygotsky would find our
> own term "disabled" quite inaccurate: since all forms of
> development are
> compensatory and involve "circuitous routes" of one kind
> or another, and
> all developed children, even, and even especially, gifted
> children, contain
> islands of underdevelopment, the correct term for deficits
> of all kinds is
> not "disabled" but "pre-abled".
>
> Personally, I see nothing wrong with a deficit view of
> children that sees
> them as pre-abled (or, as Vygotsky liked to say,
> 'primitivist"; that is,
> they are waiting for the mediational means that we have
> foolishly developed
> only for the psychophysiologically most common types to
> catch up with the
> actual variation in real children. I suspect this view is
> actually quite a
> bit closer to what Kay thinks than to what Helen thinks.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 13 July 2014 10:59, Helen Grimmett
> <helen.grimmett@monash.edu
> <mailto:helen.grimmett@monash.edu>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi David,
>
> Interesting question. I absolutely think that
> development AS a
>
>
> professional
>
>
> is necessary, just as development as a human is
> necessary, so if
> professional development is seen as the practice in
> which this
>
>
> development
>
>
> is produced then absolutely I do think it is
> necessary. The form that
>
>
> this
>
>
> practice takes though, and indeed the form of the
> development that is
> produced within this practice, are the things open to
> question however.
>
> I definitely think that a teacher's development as a
> professional
>
>
> includes
>
>
> the need to understand their practice better rather
> than just change it,
> but I think that understanding often develops best
> in/alongside/with the
> process of changing (and vice versa) rather than
> separately from it, and,
> as you point out above, in establishing ties *between*
> people and then
> within them. So a practice of professional development
> that creates
> conditions which support this type of development will
> (I believe) be
>
>
> much
>
>
> more effective than traditional forms of PD that
> either attempt to
>
>
> lecture
>
>
> about theoretical principles but do not support
> teachers to transfer
>
>
> these
>
>
> into practical changes, OR provide teachers with
> practical programs and
> expect them to implement them without any
> understanding of what and why
>
>
> the
>
>
> changes matter. I think the term "Professional
> Development" is an
>
>
> absolute
>
>
> misnomer for either of those typical approaches.
>
> So again, I have a problem with names! I'm talking
> about Professional
> Development with a completely different meaning than
> what most of the
> education community believe it to mean when they talk
> about attending PD
> seminars or workshops. I toyed with trying to find a
> different name for
>
>
> the
>
>
> particular meaning I'm talking about, but when you are
> talking about
> development from a cultural-historical theoretical
> perspective then there
> really is no other word to use! That's why I stuck to
> using 'professional
> development' (in full) when I meant my meaning, and PD
> (which is what
> teachers in Australia commonly refer to seminars and
> workshops as) when I
> refer to the typical (and in my view, usually
> non-developmental) forms of
> activities that teachers are subjected to each year.
>
> So, I agree that the need for PD is questionable, but
> the need for
> practices of professional development that help
> teachers to develop as
> professionals (that is, to develop a unified
> understanding of both the
> theoretical and practical aspects of their work, which
> is itself
> continually developing in order to meet the changing
> needs of their
> students, schools and society) is essential. While I
> think co-teaching is
> one practical small-scale solution, working out
> viable, economical, and
> manageable ways to create these practices on a
> large-scale is a very
>
>
> large
>
>
> problem.
>
> Cheers,
> Helen
>
>
> Dr Helen Grimmett
> Lecturer, Student Adviser,
> Faculty of Education,
> Room G64F, Building 902
> Monash University, Berwick campus
> Phone: 9904 7171
>
> *New Book: *
> The Practice of Teachers' Professional Development: A
> Cultural-Historical
> Approach
> <
>
>
>
> https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/professional-learning-1/the-practice-of-teachers-professional-development/
>
>
> Helen Grimmett (2014) Sense Publishers
>
>
>
> <
>
>
>
> http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th
> <http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th>
>
>
> On 13 July 2014 08:57, David Kellogg
> <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Helen:
>
> Good to hear from you at long last--I knew you
> were lurking out there
> somewhere!
>
> I didn't actually write the line about
> "establishing ties"--it's from
>
>
> "The
>
>
> Little Prince". The prince asks what "tame" means,
> and the fox replies
>
>
> that
>
>
> it means "to establish ties". But of course what I
> meant was that ties
>
>
> are
>
>
> established first between people and then within
> them; the ties of
> development are interfunctional ties that make up
> a new psychological
> system. (Or, for Halliday, they are the
> inter-systemic ties that make
>
>
> up
>
>
> new metafunctions.)
>
> As you say, Yrjo Engestrom chooses to emphasize
> another aspect of
> development with "breaking away"--he wants to
> stress its crisis-ridden
> nature. I agree with this, actually, but mostly I
> agree with you, that
>
>
> we
>
>
> are talking about two moments of the same process.
> To me, breaking away
>
>
> is
>
>
> really a precondition of the real business of
> establishing ties.
>
> Thomas Piketty makes a similar point in his book
> "Capital in the
> Twenty-first Century". He admits that war and
> revolution is the only
>
>
> thing
>
>
> that EVER counteracts the tendency of returns from
> capital to outstrip
>
>
> the
>
>
> growth in income, and that the 20th Century was an
> outlier in this
>
>
> respect,
>
>
> and the Russian revolution an extreme outlier
> within that outlier. But
>
>
> he
>
>
> also says that in the long run the one thing that
> makes UPWARD mobility
> possible is education. Despite everything, because
> of everything.
>
> I finished the book a few days ago. I guess the
> thing I most want to
>
>
> ask
>
>
> about is the assumption that professional
> development is necessary at
>
>
> all.
>
>
> Doesn't it make more sense to say that before we
> change what we are
>
>
> doing,
>
>
> we should understand it better?
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
> On 12 July 2014 13:20, Helen Grimmett
> <helen.grimmett@monash.edu
> <mailto:helen.grimmett@monash.edu>>
>
>
> wrote:
>
>
> Ah, I think you have hit the nail on the head
> David. It is indeed
>
>
> TIME
>
>
> that
>
>
> is so crucial - not only duration of time, but
> also location of time
>
>
> (which
>
>
> I suppose is really context).
>
> The problems I had with Mike and his
> colleagues about the terminology
> stemmed partly from the typical Aussie disdain
> for using words that
>
>
> might
>
>
> make your mates think you are trying to appear
> 'better' than them, so
> therefore you mock anything that sounds too
> serious or intellectual.
>
>
> But
>
>
> beyond this surface level of complaining the
> problems Huw and you
>
>
> have
>
>
> been
>
>
> discussing boil down to problems with time.
>
> Huw's complaint about my use of the heading
> "Features of
> Cultural-Historical Learning Activities" is
> well justified - but it
>
>
> was
>
>
> really just a shorthand written version of
> what I was verbally asking
>
>
> for
>
>
> as "What might be some particular features of
> learning activities
>
>
> that
>
>
> would align with principles of
> Cultural-Historical Theory?" That
>
>
> would
>
>
> have
>
>
> taken too long to write on the top of the
> piece of paper - and of
>
>
> course
>
>
> time is always too short in any after-school
> PD so shortcuts are
>
>
> inevitably
>
>
> taken. (Time problem #1)
>
> Time problem #2, which your discussion has
> highlighted for me, is
>
>
> that
>
>
> of
>
>
> course my question was really "What might be
> some particular features
>
>
> of
>
>
> learning activities that would align with THE
> LIMITED NUMBER OF (AND
> LIMITED UNDERSTANDING OF) principles of
> Cultural-Historical Theory
>
>
> THAT
>
>
> YOU
>
>
> HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED TO SO FAR?" so I really
> should have not been so
> surprised that they would find the
> brainstorming activity difficult
>
>
> and
>
>
> resort to diversionary tactics! (Mike's
> outburst posted here by David
>
>
> was
>
>
> not the only eventful moment I write about
> from this one activity.
>
>
> But
>
>
> these apparent failures actually provided much
> more interesting data
>
>
> for
>
>
> me
>
>
> and eventually lead me to several key findings
> in my thesis). I had
>
>
> spent
>
>
> several years by this stage reading and
> discussing Vygotsky and yet I
>
>
> had
>
>
> assumed/hoped the teachers would have enough
> understanding from my
> (probably not very good) explanations ABOUT
> theory over the previous
>
>
> 3
>
>
> short sessions I had had with them to be able
> to contribute answers
>
>
> to
>
>
> my
>
>
> brainstorm question. They had not had enough
> TIME to become familiar
>
>
> with
>
>
> enough of the theory to make much sense of it
> yet - but still, we
>
>
> have
>
>
> to
>
>
> start somewhere and this was still early days.
>
> Time problem #3 brings in what I called above
> the location of time. I
>
>
> had
>
>
> never intended for the sessions to be me
> giving after-school lectures
>
>
> about
>
>
> either theory or practice, yet this is what
> the teachers seemed to
>
>
> expect
>
>
> from me (and even demand from me) and were
> pretty disgruntled when I
> wouldn't/couldn't deliver. My intention was
> always to get them to
>
>
> engage
>
>
> with the relationship between THEORY and
> PRACTICE, just as David's
>
>
> comic
>
>
> book discusses the relationship between
> THINKING and SPEECH or
>
>
> EMOTION
>
>
> and
>
>
> COGNITION. My problem of course was that once
> we were in an
>
>
> after-school
>
>
> meeting we were removed in both time and space
> from where theory and
> practice of teaching/learning operate as a
> relation (i.e. the
>
>
> classroom
>
>
> activity). I was actually trying to create/use
> our own PLZ
>
>
> (Professional
>
>
> Learning ZPD) as the activity in which to
> develop and understand this
> relationship but it was initially very hard to
> get the teachers to
> understand this (at least until we had enough
> of David's Fox's
>
>
> socially
>
>
> shared experiences for the meanings to become
> communicable) and then
>
>
> even
>
>
> more difficult to get them to transfer this
> back to developing their
>
>
> own
>
>
> classroom teaching. Ironically, despite being
> the loudest complainers
>
>
> and
>
>
> disparagers, it was Mike and Kay (the
> protagonist of my other
>
>
> eventful
>
>
> moment in the brainstorming session) who
> actually ended up making the
> biggest changes in their classroom practice.
> Perhaps this is not
>
>
> really
>
>
> surprising at all - they were the ones who
> obviously engaged and
>
>
> argued
>
>
> with the ideas and activities rather than
> simply endured them!
>
> My eventual answer to the problems encountered
> in my work with the
>
>
> group
>
>
> of
>
>
> teachers was to work WITH a teacher IN her own
> classroom so that we
>
>
> had
>
>
> shared experiences of the relationship between
> theory and practice
>
>
> which
>
>
> could not only be discussed after the events,
> but also actually acted
>
>
> upon
>
>
> there and then IN the event - creating what I
> called "Situated
>
>
> Conscious
>
>
> Awareness" of both the theoretical and
> practical aspects of the
>
>
> concepts
>
>
> of
>
>
> teaching/learning and development we were
> developing understanding
>
>
> and
>
>
> practice of together. But perhaps I should
> wait until David gets up
>
>
> to
>
>
> this
>
>
> part of the book before I say more!
>
> Finally, one other point that really caught my
> attention in your
>
>
> comic
>
>
> book
>
>
> David is that your prince calls development
> "to establish ties" which
>
>
> is
>
>
> an
>
>
> interesting difference to Engestrom's
> definition as "breaking away".
>
>
> But
>
>
> perhaps, as always in CH theory, it is not a
> matter of either/or but
>
>
> in
>
>
> fact both/and ideas that are necessary. From
> what I learned in my
>
>
> study,
>
>
> teachers' development as professionals is
> definitely BOTH about
>
>
> breaking
>
>
> away from old, routinised understandings and
> practices AND
>
>
> establishing
>
>
> new
>
>
> connections between and amongst theoretical
> concepts and practices,
> enabling them to continually develop new
> competences and motives
>
>
> across
>
>
> all
>
>
> of their professional duties.
>
> Thanks for your interest in my book David. The
> discussion it has
>
>
> sparked
>
>
> has helped me revisit ideas from new perspectives.
>
> Cheers,
> Helen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dr Helen Grimmett
> Lecturer, Student Adviser,
> Faculty of Education,
> Room G64F, Building 902
> Monash University, Berwick campus
> Phone: 9904 7171
>
> *New Book: *
> The Practice of Teachers' Professional
> Development: A
>
>
> Cultural-Historical
>
>
> Approach
> <
>
>
>
> https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/professional-learning-1/the-practice-of-teachers-professional-development/
>
>
> Helen Grimmett (2014) Sense Publishers
>
>
>
> <
>
>
>
> http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th
> <http://monash.edu.au/education/news/50-years/?utm_source=staff-email&utm_medium=email-signature&utm_campaign=50th>
>
>
> On 12 July 2014 07:29, David Kellogg
> <dkellogg60@gmail.com
> <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> Plekhanov distinguishes between
> "agitators" and "propagandists".
>
>
> Agitators
>
>
> are essentially popularizers; they have
> the job of ripping away a
>
>
> subset
>
>
> of
>
>
> smaller and simpler ideas from a fabric of
> much larger and more
>
>
> complex
>
>
> theory and then disseminating them amongst
> the largest possible
>
>
> number
>
>
> of
>
>
> people. In other words, their focus is
> exoteric. Propagandists are
> essentially conspiratorial: they have the
> job of initiating a small
>
>
> number
>
>
> of the elect and educating them in the
> whole theoretical system--as
>
>
> Larry
>
>
> would say, the full Bildung. In other
> words, their focus is
>
>
> esoteric.
>
>
> As
>
>
> you can see, Plekhanov was good at making
> distinctions, and not so
>
>
> good
>
>
> at
>
>
> showing how things are linked. For Helena,
> who is a labor
>
>
> educator,
>
>
> you
>
>
> can't really be an effective agitator
> unless you are also a
>
>
> propagandist.
>
>
> You need to present your exoteric extracts
> in such a way that they
>
>
> are,
>
>
> to
>
>
> borrow Larry's phrase, both necessary and
> sufficient to lead people
>
>
> on
>
>
> to
>
>
> the esoterica. I'm with Helena--and with
> Bruner--with children it's
>
>
> always
>
>
> possible to tell the truth, part of the
> truth, but nothing but the
>
>
> truth,
>
>
> and if we can do it with kids, why not do
> it with adults?
>
> (I am less sure about what it means to say
> that the objectively
>
>
> human
>
>
> is
>
>
> the "subjectively historical"--it sounds
> like history is being
>
>
> reified
>
>
> as a
>
>
> subject, that is, as a living, breathing,
> acting "World Spirit"
>
>
> that
>
>
> can
>
>
> have a mind and reflect upon itself. My
> understanding of history is
> that just as we cannot have the advanced
> form of historical
>
>
> consciousness
>
>
> in dialogue with the more primitive forms,
> the opportunity to
>
>
> reflect
>
>
> upon
>
>
> the whole process when it is all over is
> simply never going to be
>
>
> available
>
>
> to anyone. The Merleau-Ponty quotation is
> beautiful and intensely
> poetic, Larry--but when I look at a bubble
> or a wave, I do not
>
>
> simply
>
>
> see
>
>
> chaos; I see past bubbles and past waves,
> and potential bubbles and
> potential waves. Isn't that a part of the
> experience of "loving
>
>
> history"
>
>
> as
>
>
> well?)
>
> My wife wrote a wonderful Ph.D. thesis
> about how any work of
>
>
> literature
>
>
> can
>
>
> be looked at on four time frames:
> phylogenetic (the history of a
>
>
> genre),
>
>
> ontogenetic (the biography of a career),
> logogenetic (the
>
>
> development
>
>
> of
>
>
> a
>
>
> plot or a character), and microgenetic
> (the unfolding of a
>
>
> dialogue,
>
>
> or a
>
>
> paragraph). Her supervisor complained
> about the terminology in
>
>
> somewhat
>
>
> more elegant terms than Mike does in
> Helen's data:and suggested
>
>
> that
>
>
> she
>
>
> should replace the terms with "history",
> "biography", "development"
>
>
> and
>
>
> "unfolding", to make it more exoteric.
>
> I think that if she had done that, it
> would have made the thesis
>
>
> into
>
>
> agitation rather than education. Yes, the
> terms would have been
>
>
> more
>
>
> familiar, and they might even, given other
> context, be taken to
>
>
> mean
>
>
> the
>
>
> same thing. But what we would have gotten
> is good, clear
>
>
> distinctions
>
>
> ("history" on the one hand and "biography"
> on the other) and what
>
>
> we
>
>
> would
>
>
> have lost is the linkedness of one time
> frame to another--the way
>
>
> in
>
>
> which
>
>
> the phylogenesis of genre produces the
> mature genre which is used
>
>
> in
>
>
> an
>
>
> author's ontegenesis, and the way in which
> the author's ontogenesis
> produces the starting point and the raw
> materials for the
>
>
> logogenetic
>
>
> development of a work, not to mention the
> way in which logogenesis
>
>
> is
>
>
> reflected in the microgenetic unfolding of
> dialogue.
>
> So I think that when Helena writes that
> anything can be explained
>
>
> to
>
>
> anyone
>
>
> in language that is everyday and simple
> and in a way that is
>
>
> understandable
>
>
> and at least part of the whole truth, I
> agree somewhat enviously
>
>
> (you
>
>
> see,
>
>
> Helena is a labor educator, but I teach
> TESOL, which is really the
>
>
> process
>
>
> of taking a few very simple and exoteric
> ideas that good teachers
>
>
> already
>
>
> have and disseminating the select to the
> elect for vast sums of
>
>
> money).
>
>
> But
>
>
> I have to add a rider--when we popularize
> richly woven fabrics of
>
>
> ideas
>
>
> like cultural historical theory we are not
> simply juggling
>
>
> vocabulary.
>
>
> I
>
>
> think that Helena recognizes this
> perfectly when she says that it
>
>
> takes
>
>
> TIME to be simple and clear. If it were
> simply a matter of
>
>
> replacing
>
>
> "cultural historical" with "community of
> learners" it would
>
>
> actually
>
>
> take
>
>
> less time, but it isn't and it doesn't.
>
> It is very hot in Seoul today, and
> somewhere out there a toddler is
>
>
> arguing
>
>
> with a parent because he wants watermelon
> with breakfast. The
>
>
> parent
>
>
> resists, because if you eat cold
> watermelon on an empty stomach you
>
>
> get a
>
>
> tummy-ache. The argument grows heated and
> long--and complex, but
>
>
> the
>
>
> complexity is of a particular kind, with
> very short, repeated,
>
>
> insistancies
>
>
> from the child and somewhat longer more
> complex remonstrations from
>
>
> the
>
>
> parent. We can call this complex discourse
> but simple grammar. A
>
>
> few
>
>
> years
>
>
> will go by and we will find that the
> school child has mastered the
>
>
> trick
>
>
> of
>
>
> long and complex remonstrations and can
> use them pre-emptively to
>
>
> win
>
>
> arguments. We can call this complex
> grammar, but simple vocabulary.
>
>
> Only
>
>
> when a decade or two has elapsed will we
> find that child, now
>
>
> adult,
>
>
> can
>
>
> use the language of science, which is for
> the most part
>
>
> grammatically
>
>
> simple (at least compared to the
> pre-emptive remonstrations of the
>
>
> school
>
>
> child), but full of very complex
> vocabulary (e.g. "phylogeny
>
>
> anticipates
>
>
> ontogeny", or "cultural-historical
> activity theory enables
>
>
> communities
>
>
> of
>
>
> learners").
>
> It's Saturday today, and in a few minutes
> I have to leave for the
>
>
> weekly
>
>
> meeting of our translation group, which
> produces mighty tomes which
>
>
> we
>
>
> produce to popularize the works of
> Vygotsky amongst militant
>
>
> teachers
>
>
> here
>
>
> in Korea (our version of "Thinking and
> Speech" is seven hundred
>
>
> pages
>
>
> long
>
>
> because of all the explanatory notes and
> boxes with helpful
>
>
> pictures).
>
>
> On
>
>
> the other hand, there is the attached
> comic book version of the
>
>
> first
>
>
> chapter of "Thinking and Speech" which I
> wrote a couple of years
>
>
> ago
>
>
> for
>
>
> some graduate students who were having
> trouble talking about the
>
>
> real
>
>
> "Thinking and Speech" in class.
>
> I think you can see that Huw's complaint
> is justified--the comic
> book dialogue is "about" Thinking and
> Speech, but it is not
>
>
> "Thinking
>
>
> and
>
>
> Speech" at all, in the same way that
> "community of learners" or
>
>
> "biography"
>
>
> is ABOUT cultural historical theory or
> ontogenesis. And I think
>
>
> that
>
>
> part
>
>
> of the problem (but only part of it) is
> that the comic book is just
>
>
> too
>
>
> short.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2014-07-11 17:09 GMT+09:00 Leif Strandberg <
>
>
> leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com
> <mailto:leifstrandberg.ab@telia.com>
>
>
> :
>
>
>
> 11 jul 2014 kl. 06:41 skrev Larry
> Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com
> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>>:
>
>
>
> David,
> I have been following your
> reflections through this thread.
> You commented:
>
> So it's almost always more useful
> for me to
> think of learning phenomena as NOT
> reducible to the physical,
>
>
> at
>
>
> least
>
>
> not
>
>
> in their unit of analysis
>
> I have been reflecting on the
> notion of *bildung* as learning.
> The notion of *cultivation* and
> *disposition* and *comportment*
>
>
> as
>
>
> the
>
>
> potential of learning.
> I came across this quote from
> Gramsci who was questioning the
>
>
> notion
>
>
> of
>
>
> *laws* as the basis for making
> social predictions. Such *laws*
>
>
> excluded
>
>
> the
>
>
> subjective factor from history.
> Gramsci wrote on social process:
> "Objective always means
>
>
> 'humanly
>
>
> objective' which can be held to
> correspond exactly to
>
>
> 'historically
>
>
> subjective' "
>
> Merleau-Ponty also explored what I
> refer to as *disposition*
>
>
> with
>
>
> this
>
>
> quote on the reality of history:
> History "awakens us to the
> importance of daily events and
>
>
> action.
>
>
> For
>
>
> it
>
>
> is
>
>
> a philosophy [of history -LP]
> which arouses in us a love for
>
>
> our
>
>
> times
>
>
> which are not the simple
> repetition of human eternity nor
>
>
> merely
>
>
> the
>
>
> conclusion of premises already
> postulated. It is a view that
>
>
> like
>
>
> the
>
>
> most
>
>
> fragile object of perception - a
> soap bubble, or a wave - or
>
>
> like
>
>
> the
>
>
> most
>
>
> simple dialogue, embraces
> indivisibly all the order and all the
>
>
> disorder
>
>
> of
>
>
> the world."
>
>
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