[Xmca-l] Re: A Quick Lightning Dive - like a Kingfisher

[Wilkinson]

David,
Would you mind if I ask a couple of my more advanced English students 
(adults) if they find the writing conceptually interesting and inviting.
If OK, I'll enjoy seeing what kind of discussions are generated by your 
writing.
Vandy

On 2016/11/09 11:02, David Kellogg wrote:
> Tom and Vandy:
>
> This is an issue I really have to worry about all the time, because the
> main readers of our books are elementary school teachers, who really don't
> have much time for the kind of stuff they had to study up on to pass the
> civil service examination. At one time I was kind of hoping that Vygotsky
> would be put on the syllabus, but now I am rather glad he wasn't. One year,
> just for fun, I bought exam prep books and tried to follow the TV lectures
> (though I didn't sit the exam itself). It wasn't that much fun.
>
> Anyway, this is the first draft for a foreword I wrote last night for the
> new volume of Vygotsky lectures. If you have a minute, I'd really
> appreciate hearing what you think. See if you think it's too technical. See
> if you think it makes the book sound worth reading.
>
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
> On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 2:09 AM, Tom Richardson <
> tom.richardson3@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Vandy@GST
>> A delightfully serious read; a breath of mind-clearing oxygen, although it
>> isn't clear to me why. Maybe it's just because it is grounded and
>> graspable.
>> Technical languages have an essential role, but make xmca postings, no
>> matter how genuinely mind-opening and conceptually developmental, a
>> leetle(sic) hard-going at times.
>> Thanks
>> (Pity neither Hillary nor Donald  is anything other than dangerous to
>> global survival, IMO)
>> Tom Richardson
>> Middlesbrough UK
>>
>>
>> On 7 November 2016 at 02:35, valerie A. Wilkinson <
>> vwilk@inf.shizuoka.ac.jp>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Good morning, XMCAers, Vandy@GST here, promoting "requisite variety" as
>>> the
>>> true path.
>>>
>>> I've spent some hours pondering all that has happened since Mike dropped
>>> his
>>> "bombshell": Time for a generational change."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Mike himself put gender and chaining on the table at that time.
>>>
>>> Larry, in taking up the themes and honoring Mike for his "middle" role
>>>
>>> led to Phillip putting gender and chaining firmly together as patriarchal
>>> and hierarchical, even if unwitting and well intentioned.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The discussion has gone in many directions and I am late for work.  The
>> US
>>> election is "tomorrow" and what I wanted to say in an article before the
>>> decision, in a haiku-like spontaneous effusion of wisdom, learning,
>>> philosophy, and engaged learning across a lifetime was "bogged down" by
>> APA
>>> rules.  In Japan, science writers have to use APA format.  I am a
>> humanist
>>> operating in the field of Informatics and even after 20 years on board
>>> here,
>>> I do not feel I have a place at the table.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So what I want to say now, as everything hangs in the balance:
>>>
>>> My Indonesian and Vietnamese graduate students are women who have already
>>> graduated from the university and are getting married and having babies
>> at
>>> the same time that they are students in Informatics.  My Chinese and
>>> Nepalese women students graduated from universities in their home
>>> countries,
>>> but their cultural and language level is almost incalculably higher than
>> my
>>> Indonesian and Vietnamese students. My female student from Tunisia is
>> from
>>> yet another world. My class of "Professional Presentations in English"
>> is a
>>> one credit class and I am not their individual advisor.  All of them owe
>>> obedience to their own advisor, which I do not have the standing to
>> compete
>>> with.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It is my job to be a model of a woman of learning to help them discover
>>> their calling and talent while working in their lab with their own
>>> professor.  My own students are at an English level for which writing
>>> correct English is a challenge and at a cultural level (poverty and
>>> farmers)
>>> which makes them like very talented Middle School students.  We have to
>>> have
>>> fun, make paper chains, popcorn balls, posters.  We have to enjoy our
>> time
>>> and keep our space clean.  Strangely, five years of rehabilitation
>> prepared
>>> me well for this.  Sadly, rank has no meaning if the rest of the gang
>> does
>>> not recognize it .
>>>
>>> I voted.  Now I'm in the "hold my breath" phase of waiting for this thing
>>> to
>>> pass so we can get on with our lives.
>>>
>>>
>>