[Xmca-l] Re: RES: Re: Child Development: Understanding a Cultural Perpsective

[mike cole]

Happy to wait for your translation, David and thanks for reminding me that
version of this exists already. But given your care with translation,
waiting seems best - especially with my own thesis deadline fast
approaching. I do not envy you the task of figuring out who is being
referred to among the non-Russian names. You seem to be doing a great
sleuthing job. Asperger and all.

Did Kundera really write that development up to age 18-20 is sui generis?
The steady demise of my intellectual capacities induced me to get his
remarks exactly backwards it seems. (I thought there was a grandwe awaiting
me in the old folks home, should I make it that far!)

mike






On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 2:16 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think context is at least half all, Martin. In context, LSV's text is
> just as true as it is brave. But I also think it has a truth that can be
> generalized to our own time, to wit:
>
> a) Child development is sui generis, in that adult development does not (as
> Mike's quote and Rod's example make all too clear) have a "complete form"
> in the environment which guides it. Language is, as always, the central
> example here: even from the crude, purely quantitative point of view of
> word counting, we can see that language develops until roughly age
> seventeen (vocabulary learning) but it is only learned, and at a rate that
> is barely above attrition, after that. The only way to keep language
> development going is to emigrate.
>
> b) The social situation of development in childhood is BOTH constant AND
> ever-changing, BOTH single and unbroken AND singular and sui generis.
> So are the lines of development and the neoformations. But once again in
> order to really see this you need to look at language. If we take the
> social situation of development as the "relationship with the environment"
> this is both constant (in the sense that the language system is constant)
> and constantly changing (in the sense that discourse and text are
> constantly changing). If we take the lines of development as diverse forms
> of "communication" (in Russian, "sharing", "making common") on the one hand
> and various forms of "generalization" on the other (but this is
> intellectualistic, it's really "about-sharing", or "about-making-common")
> we can see that the lines of development are unbroken too but they are
> constantly shape shifting, and that in critical periods the
> "generalization" is in the first plane and communication takes the second
> plane, while in stable periods it's the other way around. The neoformations
> are even more obviously like this: critical neoformations are always the
> child's proto-version, and they persist only as subordinate moments of the
> complete version provided in the environment (hence "pre-we", "grandwe",
> "pre-will", "grandwill", "pre-me", "grandme", etc.)
>
> c) The life of the adult is not at all stable. But the variation of adult
> life is no part of ontogenesis. It is what forms the link between
> ontogenesis and sociogenesis; that is, the point were we have to stop just
> understanding the world and start to actually change it. That's the only
> thing that can excuse my somewhat flowery language about senile children
> and having futures in mind.
>
> But look at the context. The year is 1930. Russia has begun to "realize the
> first five year plan in four years". The famine is underway in the Ukraine,
> and Vygotsky is writing, about children, that although their weight and
> height doubles in the first year, it hardly changes throughout the whole of
> school age (!).
>
> Vygotsky, Blonsky, and Krupskaya are under siege (Vygotsky had dabbled in
> artistic milieux sympathetic to Trotskyism, Blonsky had a past in the
> ancient Greek classics, Krupskaya had been a member of the Leningrad
> Opposition to Stalin). Bukharin was...and for all they know still is...the
> major party theorist, and Bukharin's line is that there is absolutely no
> need for "separate laws" to describe development at different levels:
> everything is simply caused, reflexively, by adaptation to the environment.
> Vygotsky dutifully refers to Bukharin in Pedology of the Adolescent,
> Chapter One:
>
> Упрощенное представление относительно более или менее самостоятельного
> существования каждого из этих двух рядов фактов в организме человека
> приводит, по выражению Бухарина, к «нелепому удвоению законов, которое
> встречается на каждом шагу даже в самых лучших марксистских работах: с
> одной
> стороны, законы биологии, физиологии и т. д., с другой стороны, законы
> общественного развития. На самом деле, одно есть «инобытие» другого, одно и
> то же явление рассматривается с разных точек зрения». 'The simplistic
> representation of these two series of facts (biological and
> sociological--dk) as existing more or less independently in the human
> organism relative to each other leads, according to Bukharin, to an “absurd
> redundancy of laws, which occurs at every step even in the best Marxist
> works.” On the one hand, the laws of biology, physiology, and so on, and on
> the other the laws of social development. In fact, one is the “alter ego”
> of the other, one and the same phenomenon seen from different points of
> view.'
>
> What a perfect example of the thinking of the bureaucrat-philosopher! All
> development is exactly the same--just put enough pressure on the developing
> entity--and it will develop. Who needs genetic laws? There is only one law
> for the whole of development: adapt to your environment or die. Or, like
> Bukharin, do both.
>
>
>
> --
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
>
> "The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit:
> Narrative and Dialogue in Story-telling with
> Vygotsky, Halliday, and Shakespeare"
>
> Free Chapters Downloadable at:
>
> https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2096-the-great-
> globe-and-all-who-it-inherit.pdf
>
> Recent Article: Thinking of feeling: Hasan, Vygotsky, and Some Ruminations
> on the Development of Narrative in Korean Children
>
> Free E-print Downloadable at:
>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8Vaq4HpJMi55DzsAyFCf/full
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 21, 2017 at 8:55 AM, Martin John Packer <
> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co
> > wrote:
>
> > Interesting, David. I’m not sure that I agree with LSV’s answer, here, or
> > in the passage you cite in your message to Andy. At least, if we are to
> > equate pedology with developmental psychology, or with developmental
> > science. For one thing, the situation of adulthood is certainly not
> always
> > stable. For another, the ‘line’ of an adult's development may be
> different
> > from that of a child, but I would have thought that Vygotsky himself
> would
> > have agreed that there is no single line to the development of a child,
> or
> > of children. The line of development, I think, varies from stage to
> stage,
> > and from one developmental context to another.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 20, 2017, at 4:51 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com<mailto:
> d
> > kellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Martin:
> >
> > This is from the Q&A at the Psychotechnic Conference in November 1930.
> > Mikhaillov and Spielrein (Isaac, not Sabine) have just asked questions
> > about the relationship of pedology to other sciences (especially lifelong
> > education).
> >
> > Jerusalimcik: How does Comrade Vygotsky conceive of pedology: only as a
> > science of the child or as a science of the development of the human
> being
> > right to the end of his life?
> >
> > Vygotsky: Concerning the question of Comrade Jerusalimcik, is pedology
> the
> > science of the child or of the development of the person right to the end
> > of his life? I think--and, again, it seems to me that there is an
> objective
> > basis for this idea--that pedology is the science of the child in
> > development and not that of the person in development right to the end of
> > his life. I think that those who wish to extend pedology from the cradle
> to
> > the grave, those who want to put on the same plane the development of the
> > child and the development which occurs with a child, without realizing it
> > are making the same mistake that the old authors made when they said that
> > the child is a small adult: that is, they deny the qualitative
> specificity
> > of the process of development in the child compared to that processes and
> > the changes that are produced in a situation that is relatively stable.
> >
> > On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Martin John Packer <
> > mpacker@uniandes.edu.co<mailto:mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Hi Alfredo,
> >
> > I completely agree with you. If you’ll allow me to cite myself again…
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> > A strong case could be made that this book should have considered the
> > entire human lifespan. Developmental researchers have tended to assume
> that
> > the endpoint of development is the start of adulthood, and that
> development
> > is the process of the child achieving adult status. However, it should
> now
> > be clear to the reader that human psychological development involves the
> > entire span of human life, the cycle of ontogenesis from birth to death.
> > This cycle should be understood not solely in terms of the individual who
> > lives and dies, but also in terms of the social relations of reproduction
> > in a community.
> >
> > There has been an unprecedented increase in life expectancy (see figure
> > below), and this book has told only part of the story of the human life
> > cycle. As young people become parents and then grandparents, or as they
> > become teachers, coaches, or recognized community figures, their lives
> > intersect and interact with those of children, both their own and those
> of
> > other people. The stages from infant to adolescent are not separate and
> > distinct from later stages of the lifecycle. We have seen that parents
> and
> > caregivers play a crucial role in a young child’s development. Even death
> > has an intimate connection to birth: human life truly is a cycle, albeit
> > one that extends as a helix through time.
> >
> > Viewed this way, the human life cycle is a process in which:
> >
> > persons are formed and dissolved, move between dependent impotence and
> > independent authority, divide and multiply their being through relations
> > with others, know more and less about the world, and acquire and lose the
> > capacity to change it. (Robertson 1996, p. 591)
> >
> > It is worth emphasizing one more time that nature and culture are not
> > opposed but operate together, and we can see this in the fact that the
> > human lifespan is longer today than at many times in the past, and in
> many
> > parts of the world it is growing even longer, probably because nutrition
> > and healthcare are postponing the senescence programmed into our genes.
> As
> > a result, many infants will interact not only with parents but
> grandparents
> > and even great-grandparents, as never before in human existence. This
> > intergenerational contact and interaction creates opportunities for a
> > variety of influences on the child, including mentorship, advice,
> > alliances, and a richer density of social relations.
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 19, 2017, at 5:32 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
> > <mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > <mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>> wrote:
> >
> > These seem very interesting contributions in that they bring forth
> > structural aspects necessary for a *developmental* explanation. But, as
> > someone educated in general psychology and the learning sciences, but who
> > still has much to learn from developmental psychology, I always wonder
> why
> > these characterisations often refer to characteristics of the child and
> > tend to end in *adulthood*, as in Martin's sequence, but tend to say
> > nothing about adult change in that relation. (By the way, David, can you
> > clarify or refer us where we could get a better grasp of why "pre-life"
> > would be an adequate label for a reformation???)
> >
> > I can understand that there are different disciplines within
> developmental
> > psychology, one of which is concerned with child (and not adult)
> > development, just as other disciplines may deal with adult development,
> > professional development, etc. But we read in Martin's own quotations
> that,
> > " transitions [across periods] are truly changes not only in the child
> but
> > in the whole child-caregiver-niche system of which she is a component"
> >
> > If these transitions truly are transitions for the child-caregiver-niche
> > system, then the issue of age periods also and at the same time brings
> with
> > it not only the issue of niche periods (which I see can be addressed with
> > the notion of Social Situation of Development and ZPD), but also the
> issue
> > of adult development as part of that system. Does not it? But then, is it
> > about "age"? I certainly feel and can recognise that I am deeply changed
> in
> > and through educating. I am not the same person I was before I begun my
> > participant ethnography as an assistant teacher at an arts-based
> elementary
> > school. Certainly with regard to how I organise my praxis in a classroom,
> > it could be said that many of the primary functions that characterise my
> > behavior have been re-organised leading to new formations (e.g., of
> > listening, caring, orienting, responding).
> >
> > If the "primitive" but also adult "Kaffir" about which Vygotsky speaks in
> > his writings may possibly shift from "dreaming" to "thinking" as a means
> to
> > achieve the same higher psychological function, namely decision making,
> is
> > it "age" periods what should be the focus?
> >
> > These are not rhetorical but genuine questions from someone hoping to
> > learn from/with you all.
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu<http://mailman.ucsd.edu/>>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.
> > edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu<http://mailman.ucsd.edu/>>> on behalf of Andy Blunden <
> > ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net><mailto:
> > ablunden@mira.net<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>>
> > Sent: 19 May 2017 18:02
> > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:
> > xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: RES: Re: Child Development: Understanding a
> Cultural
> > Perpsective
> >
> > Like
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://home.mira.net/~andy
> > http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> >
> > On 20/05/2017 1:45 AM, Martin John Packer wrote:
> > Hi David,
> >
> > Here’s how I handled the matter of the age periods: the stages and
> crises;
> > tell me what you think.
> >
> > Infancy - A Practical Understanding of the World
> > Infancy - Towards Biological Differentiation
> > Toddlerhood - A World of Irresistible Invitations
> > Toddlerhood - Towards Psychological Differentiation
> > Early Childhood  - How Things Appear, And How They Are
> > Early Childhood  - Towards Inner and Outer
> > Middle Childhood - Understanding Institutional Reality
> > Middle Childhood - Towards the Actual and the Possible
> > The Teenage Years - Adolescent, or Adult?
> > The Teenage Years - Towards Adulthood
> >
> > The “Towards” in these chapter titles reflects the fact that I needed to
> > treat each stage in two chapters, and there was usually less to say about
> > each crisis than about each stage, so I couldn’t dedicate a whole chapter
> > to each crisis. Here’s how I described the notions of ‘stage’ and
> > ‘transition’:
> >
> > "Stages are qualitatively distinct from one another, not only in the form
> > of intelligence that the child employs (as Piaget noted), but also in the
> > child’s way of being in the world. Each stage involves a specific way of
> > relating to the world and relating to self, and as a result of this a new
> > way of experiencing and understanding.
> >
> > "Transitions are those times when new properties rapidly emerge. A
> > transition is a point of inflection, a crisis. In a transition there is a
> > dramatic change in the child’s way of being in the world, so that she
> > discovers new possibilities in that world and gains a new sense of
> herself:
> > of her abilities, her capacities. During the stage that follows, the
> child
> > progressively masters this new way of living in the world. These
> > transitions are truly changes not only in the child but in the whole
> > child-caregiver-niche system of which she is a component.”
> >
> > And the diagram below (if it comes through) illustrates the sequence (I
> > think the third should read Appearance & Reality).
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> > [cid:FAACC3A0-B984-4539-B8E7-05391373CD7F]
> >
> > On May 18, 2017, at 7:27 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com<mailto:
> d
> > kellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Martin, I think if I'd written something like that I'd be pretty
> shameless
> > too. (A propos--or by the bye--do you have a publisher for the Shpet
> > schtick you are up to...?)
> >
> > Here's something for the revised edition. The way Vygotsky explains
> "Great
> > We" in the Pedological Lectures is a little different and a lot wittier.
> He
> > says it is a "Grandwe" in the sense of your Grandpa--that is, the "we"
> was
> > there before you were even a gleam in your Daddy's eye. (Vygotsky likes
> to
> > address the students with "You and we").
> >
> > I have been thinking how to "popularize" the age periods without
> > vulgarizing them (you know, what Bruner says about being able to teach
> > anything to anybody in some honest way).
> >
> > You and we (our little Grandwe) know perfectly well that Vygotsky
> measured
> > that zone of proximal development in years (it's a "next" zone of
> > development, so it doesn't make any sense to talk about it unless:
> >
> > a) you have the age periods and
> >
> > b) you have some set of problems--not the Binet problems!--that will
> > correlate in some non-arbitrary way to the next age period.
> >
> > That means that the "next zone of development" for Vygotsky studies is
> not
> > to try to turn him into a failed Gestaltist (pace Yasnitsky and van der
> > Veer) but rather to try to figure out some way to get people to take the
> > age periods seriously no matter how busy and how impatient with
> Vygotsky's
> > discursive and apparently indecisive formulations they are.
> >
> > What do you think of this?
> >
> > Birth--Social Situation of Development: Instinct confronted by
> > intersubjectivity. Central Neoformation: "Pre-we"
> > Infancy--SSD: Physiologically independent but biologically dependent:
> > CNF: "Grandwe"
> > One--SSD: Proto-speech confronted by proper speech. CNF: "Pre-speech"
> > Early Childhood--SSD: Biologically independent but interpersonally
> > (interactionally) dependent. CNF: "Grandspeech"
> > Three--SSD: Affect confronted by the 'antipode' of will.  CNF: "Pre-will"
> > Preschool--SSD: Interpersonally independent but psychologically dependent
> > ('reactive' learning). CNF: "Grandwill"
> > Seven--SSD: Inner personality confronted by outer persona. CNF: "Pre-me"
> > School Age: Psychologically independent but intellectually
> > (academically) dependent. CNF: "Grandme"
> > Thirteen: Original thinking confronted by imitation. CNF: "Pre-concepts"
> > Adolescence: Intellectually independent but socioeconomically dependent.
> > CNF: "Grandconcepts" (nontheoretical concepts, tinged with concrete
> > thinking)
> > Seventeen SSD: In the USSR, school leaving. CNF: "Pre-Life"
> >
> > You could write the Crises on your palm and the Stable Periods along each
> > finger. (Hard to read it, though....)
> >
> > --
> > David Kellogg
> > Macquarie University
> >
> > "The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit:
> > Narrative and Dialogue in Story-telling with
> > Vygotsky, Halliday, and Shakespeare"
> >
> > Free Chapters Downloadable at:
> >
> > https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2096-the-great-
> > globe-and-all-who-it-inherit.pdf
> >
> > Recent Article: Thinking of feeling: Hasan, Vygotsky, and Some
> Ruminations
> > on the Development of Narrative in Korean Children
> >
> > Free E-print Downloadable at:
> >
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8Vaq4HpJMi55DzsAyFCf/full
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 9:10 AM, Maria Judith Sucupira Costa Lins <
> > mariasucupiralins@terra.com.br> wrote:
> >
> > Martin
> > Thank you for the chapter. Maria
> >
> > -----Mensagem original-----
> > De: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu]
> > Em nome de Martin John Packer
> > Enviada em: quarta-feira, 17 de maio de 2017 20:05
> > Para: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > Assunto: [Xmca-l] Re: Child Development: Understanding a Cultural
> > Perpsective
> >
> > Thanks Alfredo. It was fun to write, and it would not have been possible
> > except for what I have learned over the years from some very smart
> people,
> > a
> > number of whom hang out on this very discussion group.
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On May 17, 2017, at 5:48 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil
> > <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for shamelessly sharing your work, Martin. The chapter looks
> great.
> > I
> > like the way it draws connections throughout diverse theories,
> emphasising
> > common ground across dual systems theory, dynamic field theory, and
> > cultural
> > psychology.
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From:
> > xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>
> > on
> > behalf of Martin John Packer
> > <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co<mailto:mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>>
> > Sent: 18 May 2017 00:10
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l]  Child Development: Understanding a Cultural
> Perpsective
> >
> > A few months ago I shamelessly promoted my new textbook, Child
> Development:
> > Understanding a Cultural Perspective, published by Sage at only $46 for
> the
> > paperback edition, $33 or less for the various electronic editions.
> >
> > There is now a sample chapter available online: Chapter 5, one of the two
> > chapters on infancy:
> >
> > <https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/child-development/
> book253543%20#preview>
> >
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > David Kellogg
> > Macquarie University
> >
> > "The Great Globe and All Who It Inherit:
> > Narrative and Dialogue in Story-telling with
> > Vygotsky, Halliday, and Shakespeare"
> >
> > Free Chapters Downloadable at:
> >
> > https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2096-the-great-
> > globe-and-all-who-it-inherit.pdf
> >
> > Recent Article: Thinking of feeling: Hasan, Vygotsky, and Some
> Ruminations
> > on the Development of Narrative in Korean Children
> >
> > Free E-print Downloadable at:
> >
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8Vaq4HpJMi55DzsAyFCf/full
> >
> >
>