[Xmca-l] Re: Resending LSV/ANL on crisis in ontogengy

[Peg Griffin]

Thinking of growth which challenges social arrangements, Andy, am I mistakenly remembering an anecdote like the following in Leontiev's "Problems in the Development of Mind:"  A child not yet going to school and a child going to school have different "calls" on the family to buy pencils or crayons -- might be nice for the younger one but absolute need for the older one.   
I hope this scenario is really there (or somewhere not just in my internal constructions] because in it socio-cultural institutions impact one another and pull in the individual's growth while doing it and then there's a wonderful arabesque rebound to the individual.
[Sorry I don't right now have a copy and a way to get to where this might be in the Leontiev book.  Hint:) I'm really pretty sure it's far away from the part about trying to teach forearm cells to recognize light! ] 
Peg

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2015 11:28 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Resending LSV/ANL on crisis in ontogengy

Huw, what I think is distinctive about SSD for child development, as opposed to adult personality development, is that there is still a significant biological process of maturation and growth going on which constantly challenges social arrangements. This is not the case for adults. An adult can get a job when they leave school and stay in that job for life, except that the *social* arrangements keep challenging the individual.

Also, I don't think all this is best conceived in terms of *cognition* - there are a lot of other psychological processes involved.

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


Huw Lloyd wrote:
> As a unit, 'SSD'  should be referring to conditions which are 
> necessary to go through for the subsequent 'unfolding'.  But SSD as a 
> referent to all important (and less important) stages can easily 
> become overly abstract.
>
> For the fundamental developmental situations, we are looking for 
> conditions under which the nature of cognition changes, so milder 
> situations like career progression are not in the same category.
>
> The way I think of this is that the child's old form of social support 
> is no longer suitable. Not only is the support deemed to be too 
> restrictive, but the semantic interpretation that the child places 
> upon the old form of support is experienced as being 'wrong'.  When 
> the two year old says "no", I suspect that s/he may sometimes be 
> saying "no, you've got it wrong".  The child certainly seems to 
> communicate similarly complex expressions such as pushing an object 
> out of sight, pulling it back and then smiling at an adult as if to 
> say, "Isn't that amazing, it was still there!" or, perhaps "Look, I 
> made it reappear!"
>
> An adult version of that semantic difficulty is perhaps evident in the 
> shift of meanings between formal and genetic/dialectical materialist 
> logic.  The terms abstract, generalisation, ideal, material, 
> universal, concrete, unit all have different meanings along with many 
> other differences, hence the old way of knowing may interfere with the 
> natural progression.
>
> Huw
>
>
>
>
>
> On 21 March 2015 at 00:47, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net 
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     I think Huw put the alternative interpretation of Leontyev's words
>     very well. There *is* a difference there, but it is not as
>     profound as at first sight.
>     I don't agree with the cast David has put on my view though. It is
>     precisely in understanding the crises as being transitions between
>     SSDs which is where SSD is invaluable as the unit.
>     In general of course it is true, that a unit shed light on a
>     specific problem, and is not the key to everything.
>     Andy
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Andy Blunden*
>     http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>     <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
>
>     David Kellogg wrote:
>
>         ... he set out the necessity of different units of analysis
>         for different problems (which is why I agree with Andy that
>         the SSD is an
>         adequate unit of analysis for SOME problems but not for the
>         crisis). He
>         says that even in kids like Huw's, who experience no apparent
>         crisis, we
>         can observe that particular periods appear to stand out
>         against more stable
>         periods in three respects:
>          
>
>
>