[Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism

Sun Jan 22 12:22:23 PST 2017

Thank you, Alfredo - I gave it a read. 

Sure, of course they’re right. But I am very disappointed. 

I was hoping that the following was only item #1 in a long list of "what the 2016 election made apparent":

The 2016 election has made apparent the need for scholarship that explicitly defends and furthers the rights and well-being of people of color, immigrants, Muslims, women, people who are differently abled, LGBTQ communities, and the earth. These are stances that have been limited, at least explicitly, in the Learning Sciences. 

But the call for inclusion was not just #1, it seems to be the whole thing.  In other words, it’s all about identity —plus the earth, of course. While inclusion is necessary, it’s not even a start. Yes, research, teaching, publishing, promotion, conferences — everything associated with teaching and learning has to include everyone as equals (see Andy’s book) in one way or another — but then what? What are they (we) supposed to do? Where does the pretty language touch the ground?

I was listening to a broadcast of the Women’s March in DC on Saturday morning, and Kamala Harris, who was the California State Attorney General and is now a junior Senator from CA, was addressing the rally. She said, “People always ask me to talk about women’s issues. I say, ‘Oh, I’m SO glad you’re interested in economics!! Let’s talk about economics.”  And she ran through a whole set of parallel back-and-forths, always pulling identity questions back to wages, jobs, earning, supporting your family, etc etc. 

Much as we need to wipe away any barriers to the Learning Sciences (and the professions and institutions dedicated to them) due to identity, until the Learning Sciences start taking a look at the place where most people spend most of their lives — not school, I mean — but work, they will be engaging in a soft conversation at the edge of the real issue. It’s a pleasant conversation but it doesn’t put a hand on the levers that translate skill and knowledge into rent and groceries.

H

Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com
Berkeley, CA 94707
Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com

> On Jan 22, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> wrote:
> 
> Here it is, 
> 
> http://cognitionandinstruction.com/engagements-the-learning-sciences-in-a-new-era-of-u-s-nationalism/
> 
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> Sent: 22 January 2017 20:24
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism
> 
> Someone please re-send the link to this article?  I think I’m going to want to read it and respond to Mike’s question.
> 
> Thanks — H
> 
> 
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Berkeley, CA 94707
> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 22, 2017, at 12:25 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> wrote:
>> 
>> Mike,
>> 
>> thanks a lot for sharing this article. You and Michael, who have and know more history, have spoken in terms of reminiscences. I have lived and know less, and the article feels like fresh air. During my PhD, I begun to increasingly feel that I had to due something to act and respond to the increasing ecological and humanitarian globe crises. But how could I do anything if I had children and a PhD to finalise?? What could I do that would also be doing my job as researcher in a department of education? It was very difficult to find anything, partly because almost every academic quest would focus on learning, but so little on social development. How many scientific articles are dedicated to socio-political questions in the most cited educational journals? I felt very powerless.
>> 
>> To be able to address these questions within my expertise, is a challenge partly because contrary to Dewey's hope, educational research has only marginally focused on these questions, and yet they may be exactly the question that matter to education. What are we educating for? Indeed, what is education for? I think we face a serious problem when someone (like myself), being an educational researchers/scholar, still has to scratch her head wondering <<how can I make my profession matter to social change and development?>> Vygotsky would be shocked!
>> 
>> Alfredo
>> 
>> 
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
>> Sent: 19 January 2017 04:51
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism
>> 
>> Yes Michael,
>> 
>> It feels like the world of the later 1930's about the time I was born as
>> that period came down to me through the prism of a family of "premature
>> anti fascists."
>> 
>> For a great re-creation of those times see the highly ambivalent film by
>> Frank Capra, "meet John Doe." It has American big capital interconnected
>> with fascism combined with populist collectivism in a manner that points at
>> the media (as then experienced) as the bad guys in disguise. Happy Ending,
>> Beethoven Ode to Joy and all.
>> 
>> It's come round again, nastier this time.
>> 
>> Mike
>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 6:20 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Mike
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It was so interesting to read this note after reading the Cognition and
>>> Instruction essay.  All the way through it I kept thinking we have been
>>> here before.  It reminded me of the scholars, especially those who had
>>> escaped from Germany, trying to make sense of what had happened to their
>>> society during World War II.  The foremost in my mind was Lewin.  Except I
>>> wonder if he would say the process of transformative action starts not with
>>> emergence of quasi-needs, but our willingness and abilities to step back
>>> from our quasi-needs and the ways that they drive us, often to
>>> dysfunctional behaviors that it ultimately destructive to both our society
>>> and to us as individuals.  How hard this is to do, we have to keep going
>>> back again and again.  The quasi-needs, tribalism, acceptance, standing are
>>> always there.  It is how they shape us that is critical.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Michael
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> 
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
>>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
>>> 
>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2017 8:31 PM
>>> 
>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>> 
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> In following  the perezhivanie thread I encountered the note I re-membered.
>>> 
>>> And interestingly mis-remembered. A translation into my focus on
>>> mediational means. He places the starting point of the process of
>>> transformative action at the emergence of quasi-needs (from Kurt Lewin).
>>> 
>>> That seems correct to me. The new mediational means emerge under
>>> environmental presses. Ever functionalist ego need a goal(!). (The problem
>>> with functionalism) In David's words,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Perhaps the place we should look for "exaptations" that can save both our
>>> personalities and our environment is not in our evolved needs, but in yet
>>> to be designed quasi-needs. Artificial organs, after all, always suggest
>>> new and ever more artificial functions, like chess and language.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This point seems worth keeping in mind as we look at where this group of
>>> critical scholars who work within the Learning Sciences disciplinary
>>> framework would like to lead us.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> mike
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
> 
> 