[Xmca-l] Bill's query

[Wolff-Michael Roth]

Bill asked me to respond to some questions, but I could not find in my
trash can the earlier strand. Here the issues he had raised:


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Since I have bothered to read your book and quote directly from it I think
my comments deserve a public response. I'll repeat it again here:

Specifically you say that constructivists argue that: (I've *bolded* the
bits where your understanding of Piaget is different to mine)
"the individual mind is ... *informationally closed* to the surrounding
world" (51) (von Glasersfeld said this iin the text where he also discusses
Piaget, if I remember well)
"In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to *incorrectly
'interpret'* the object ..." (51) (this is what you typically find in
constructivist research, for only something in your mind exists for the
person)
"As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's knowing
 *negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance* ..." (52) (I have pointed
in the past to many places where Piaget writes what a child cannot yet do,
he always uses adult reasoning as (generally implicit) reference for
characterizing the child. There was  a nice chapter in the 1980s: Meyer-Drawe,
K. (1986). Zähmung eines wilden Denkens? [Taming of undomesticated
thought?] In A. Métraux & B. Waldenfels (Eds.), Leibhaftige Vernunft:
Spuren von Merleau-Pontys Denken (pp. 258–275). Munich, Germany: Wilhelm
Fink. And in Merleau-Ponty's writing you can see the critique of a Piaget,
from whom children are lesser (adults)
"In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that *misconceptions
... have to be eradicated* (53) (Yes, this you can find in the literature
on misconceptions, with the very verb "eradicate")

Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide
glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect,
deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass
through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the
child's different view of the world. (Well, I just did a quick check, and
in *The Growth of Logical Thinking, *the verb/noun fail/failure appears at
least 50+ times, though one would have to check the sense; the verb
*cannot* appears
over 60 times, and so on...)

I gather you haven't read Papert or Minsky. I feel their version,
constructionism, contains many useful insights. (I have, in my
constructivist days, and I have read many of the books coming from his lab
[Papert], and I know many of his students personally. And I referenced
their work amply, until I saw no more benefit in that work.)
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Michael