[Xmca-l] Re: Over or excess involvement of parent - ZPD

[HENRY SHONERD]

David,
Thank you for your thoughtful explanation of why fingering of the keys of a piano is not a higher psychological function!  You say, “...the goal of fingering in piano playing, typing and handwriting is unconscious, automatic control.” But is such mastery possible without going through a controlled phase? Isn’t such control evidence of a higher psychological process? I don’t have my mind made up on this.  But let me suggest that you have given prototypical extremes of higher psychological processes and motor processes, but I think the difference can be construed as being on a continuum. This would be in line with the principle of embodied cognition espoused by cogntive linguistics.  

My post or may not, be off thread. Or it may be an extension of it. I am thinking of the work K.A.Ericsson on deliberate practice, who has researched the path to mastery of elite musicians. This seems to connect with Ulvi’s start to the thread: Parents vs. music teachers. What kind of scaffolding works best, and by whom? And what is the connection between comprehension and production of a “complex process”? Isn’t this what you are getting at in linking perception and speech? 

Henry











      
> On Sep 21, 2015, at 10:37 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Henry:
> 
> a) Complex psychological functions are part and parcel of what Vygotsky
> calls psychological systems. For example, in an infant, affect and
> perception are still not differentiated. But in older children affect and
> perception, differentiated, can be linked up to other functions: affect to
> memory, for example, and perception to speech. This is what makes
> conscious, de-automatized control of a the different aspects of a complex
> function possible (we can will ourselves to remember pleasant memories, and
> we can "listen and repeat" in language learning). But the goal of fingering
> in piano playing, typing, and handwriting is unconscious, automatic
> control.
> 
> b) Complex psychological functions are mediated and then actually initiated
> by language. For example, in an infant perception is not verbal
> perception--what the infant sees is not a book but a bound set of paper
> sheets for tearing; not a watch, but a shiny object that can be mouthed and
> almost but not quite swallowed. For an older child, the word meaning of
> 'book" calls up certain memories which are often highly colored with
> imagery (in my case, with my father's voice reading French comic books to
> me when I was a child). But if I describe a well-ornamented acquaintance as
> a "walking chandelier", it is word meanings that produce visual and sound
> images. Fingering in piano playing, typing and handwriting, when it is
> separated from reading sheet music, writing an e-mail, or composing a
> shopping list, is not mediated or initiated by language.
> 
> c) Because they have a common basis in word meanings, complex psychological
> functions are easily integrated with each other. For example, an infant who
> learns to recognize her or his mother's voice will not necessarily be able
> to recognize his or her nanny's face. Similarly, a child who knows the
> fingerings on the piano will not necessarily be able to find similar notes
> on a violin. But a child who can read music can "read" equally well in
> piano and piccolo.
> 
> David Kellogg
> 
> For the adult reading a
> 
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 10:21 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> How do we know that fingering is NOT a complex psychological function in
>> the development of ability on the piano?
>> With respect,
>> Henry
>> 
>>> On Sep 21, 2015, at 4:34 PM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I tend to answer your question in the affirmative David, I think that,
>>> while working alone, the child has the opportunity to think, s/he is
>>> allowed to think, to evaluate, s/he is free to do so while with parent,
>>> s/he is constrained to do the best possible. And I think that to be able
>> to
>>> think makes the child nearer to musicality.
>>> And this during the lesson with the teacher also that more musicality or
>>> attention to musicality is paid.
>>> 
>>> For the difference btw bike, golf and piano and writing, may it be too
>> much
>>> speculative if I hypothesize that the latter seem to be more specifically
>>> or closely, intensely related with neural substrates.
>>> 
>>> On 22 September 2015 at 00:57, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Dear Ulvi:
>>>> 
>>>> Well, the literature I've read is contradictory. On the one hand, there
>> is
>>>> that famous Brazilian study on building model farms. One group was
>>>> "scaffolded" by their parents and the other by skilled elementary school
>>>> teachers. The parents tended to elbow the children aside and make the
>>>> models themselves (so as not to waste the precious clay), but the
>> teachers
>>>> tended to stand back and let the kids have a go. The result was that the
>>>> teacher scaffolded group attained much higher levels of self-regulation.
>>>> 
>>>> In contrast, Askew et al notes that teachers who are quite skillful at
>>>> scaffolding their own children at home do not actually use scaffolding
>>>> strategies in the classroom (because of time pressure and the presence
>> of
>>>> too many different learners with different needs). The assumption is
>> that
>>>> delicate scaffolding is an effective strategy. Something similar appears
>>>> when we look at "scaffolding" research in foreign language learning--the
>>>> more delicate the scaffolding, the more effective it is, whatever that
>>>> means.
>>>> 
>>>> Vygotsky, however, is not contradictory at all. Even in the famous
>> passage
>>>> on p. 86, he is very offhand and casual about the different strategies
>>>> which can be used in teaching (leading questions, starting solutions,
>> doing
>>>> demonstrations) and treats the degrees of freedom in collaboration as an
>>>> empirical problem, to be worked out on a case by case basis. He even
>> points
>>>> out that a child at home who remembers the way that a teacher solved a
>> math
>>>> problem on the board and uses it to solve a problem is "in
>> collaboration".
>>>> See also his use of different kinds of "introvolution" at the end of
>>>> Chapter Five of HDHMF.
>>>> 
>>>> But--here's MY question. Vygotsky often contrasts particular physical
>>>> skills (bike riding, playing golf, type-writing) to psychological
>>>> development, and he makes it very clear that the former play no part in
>> the
>>>> zone of proximal development, at least for the school age child, because
>>>> they are not developmental. On the other hand, he also compares
>> learning to
>>>> play the piano with learning to write, where finger skills do not play a
>>>> part in the zone of proximal development, but the psychological
>> functions
>>>> involved in musical and literary awareness do.
>>>> 
>>>> Instead of considering that what happens when the child works alone is a
>>>> change in the source and the quality of motivation, couldn't we say that
>>>> what happens is that the child is able to get beyond a fixation on
>>>> fingering and understand music as a complex psychological function?
>>>> 
>>>> David Kellogg
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 6:08 AM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Sorry, at the very end, it should have been, lack of onset of the
>>>>> functioning...
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 22 September 2015 at 00:04, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Life and new trials and experiences may have the potential for
>>>>>> illimunating certain facts otherwise staying unresolved.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Suppose that a parent supports his child for piano lessons at home.
>> The
>>>>>> child, unlike other,needed a lot of parent support until then to
>>>> succeed
>>>>> in
>>>>>> conservatory and the parent always though that without him/her, the
>>>> child
>>>>>> is not able to remember teacher's latest lesson's directives, to apply
>>>>> them
>>>>>> etc.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But this means that the child finds every time the parent besides him
>>>>>> during lessons at home (even the parent takes not during the lesson
>>>> with
>>>>>> teacher) and the child is used to be reminded by the parent for the
>>>> most
>>>>>> critical things to be newly learned.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The lesson before the last one is not so successful. Until that lesson
>>>>> the
>>>>>> child and the parent worked again together. So many mistakes on the
>>>> part
>>>>> of
>>>>>> the child.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But then, at return at home, they decide the child works on his own
>> for
>>>>>> three days. Then the new lesson with teacher takes place. Zero parent
>>>>>> involvement.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Then, this same passage is very well done and appreciated by the
>>>> teacher
>>>>>> and the teacher says, is this the same child, do you have another
>>>>> identical
>>>>>> one at home.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> *
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> So, my hypothesis is that, with such an excessinve parent involvement,
>>>>> who
>>>>>> does not possess confidence in the child to study appropriately, the
>>>>> child
>>>>>> may be chained and the process of  developing his potential with adult
>>>>> may
>>>>>> turn to a lack of opportunity to develop his potential on his own,
>>>> which
>>>>>> may be quite harmful for the child.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> May this hypothesis verified: when working with the parent, the child
>>>>>> hands over his attention ability to the adult, he shares this ability
>>>>> with
>>>>>> him, he delivers himself to the adult and is unable to take any
>>>>> initiative,
>>>>>> is not the manager of the learning process.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But, as soon as the parent goes out, he knows that he is the sole
>>>>>> responsible for his own learning process and pays much more attention
>>>> to
>>>>>> what he does, makes maximum effort to learn during the lesson with the
>>>>>> teacher, and to remember at home what the teacher taught during the
>>>>> lesson.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In this case, I think the mistake on the part of the parent is the
>>>> onset
>>>>>> of the functioning of self regulation during learning process.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Does this over or excess involvement make any sense, or a place in the
>>>>>> literature?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ulvi
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>>