[Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter

[mike cole]

Now of only walking were a higher psychological function, Peg,
Peter might call that a zone of nearest development!

Or it might be seen as a kind of construction forest.  :-)

mike



On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net> wrote:

> Apropos of Martin's observation of walking:  Here is a slide of a
> Rembrandt drawing.  I use it when starting to work with people who are or
> are planning to teach young children, especially if they are quite
> convinced that modeling the correct language or other behavior is essential
> and pretty much all that is essentially needed.
> There are a few casual notes under the slide that are just my attempts to
> get them to relax into some disconcerting-for-them viewpoints.
> Peg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 7:11 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter
>
> I was thinking something similar, Henry. This seems to me one of those
> rare occasions where Vygotsky doesn’t have it quite right. I spend quite a
> bit of time watching kids walking with adults, because it’s a phenomenon I
> find quite fascinating. A child using a table for support while starting to
> walk is quite different from the ways that adults will actively help a
> child to walk, performing functions, such as balance, that the child is not
> yet capable of alone. Then, when the child *is* capable of walking alone,
> the adults have to be even more active: everyone knows that a toddler will
> head off in any direction that attracts their interest: now adults need to
> be what I think Bowlby called an ‘external ego.’
>
> Martin
>
> > On Apr 26, 2018, at 5:56 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Peter, et. al.
> > In the text from Vygotsky, the “external objects” the child is making
> use of might be an “affordance” as per J.J. Gibson?  Something else comes
> to my mind in a child learning to walk is the risk of serious injury. Most
> adults would probably not knowingly let the child risk such injury. That
> would be endangerment in a court of law.
> > Henry
> >
> >
> >> On Apr 26, 2018, at 2:02 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> Thanks Peter!
> >> Mike
> >>
> >> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 12:59 PM Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> In case anyone is interested in LSV's use of scaffolding, Rene sent me
> the
> >>> following. But it seems clear to me that he's not using it as Bruner
> did.
> >>> The scaffolding here is not designed by an adult, but rather involves a
> >>> child's use of available supports. The words might be more or less the
> >>> same, but the concept seems very different to me.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> See p. 226 of my Understanding Vygotsky (1991, with Valsiner), where I
> >>> observed that Vygotsky used the scaffolding metaphor in chapter 3 of
> >>> Vygotsky & Luria (Studies in the history of behaviour: Ape, primitive,
> >>> man,1930, p. 202).
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> And this is the text:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Let us recall how the child gradually learns to walk. As soon as his
> >>> muscles are strong enough, he begins to move about on the ground in the
> >>> same primitive manner as animals, using a naturally innate mode of
> >>> locomotion. He crawls on all fours; indeed one of the leading
> pedologists
> >>> of our day says that the very young child reminds us of a small
> quadruped,
> >>> rather like an “ape-like cat”. [39]That animal continues for some time
> to
> >>> move about in the same primitive manner; within a few months, however,
> it
> >>> begins to stand up on its legs: the child has started to walk. The
> >>> transition to walking is usually not clear-cut. At first the child
> makes
> >>> use of external objects, by holding on to them: he makes his way along
> >>> holding onto the edge of the bed, an adult’s hand, a chair, pulling the
> >>> chair along behind him and leaning on it. In a word, his ability to
> walk is
> >>> not yet complete: it is in fact still surrounded, as it were, by the
> >>> scaffolding of those external tools with which it was created. Within a
> >>> month or two, however, the child grows out of that scaffolding,
> discarding
> >>> it, as no more external help is needed; external tools have now been
> >>> replaced by newly formed internal neurodynamic processes. Having
> developed
> >>> strong legs, sufficient stability and coordination of movement, the
> child
> >>> has now moved into the stage of definitive walking.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> >>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
> >>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2018 12:58 PM
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Thank you to Peter
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Makes good sense to me, Rob.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I do not have the same problem with proximal that Peter does, but
> >>> emphasizing the temporal ordering seems certainly right.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> With respect to scaffolding: The russian term is строительные леса  -
> >>> literally, "construction forests" -- think of the "scaffolding" around
> >>> public buildings that block the sidewalks and are a "forest" of pipes
> and
> >>> boards.
> >>>
> >>> Beats a gallows by a verst or two!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> BUT, beware that Vygotsky and Luria, among others, used this very term
> at
> >>> times. There is interesting work by Arthur Bakkar and Anna Shvarts on
> this
> >>> very topic that I am hoping to get represented in MCA. Arthur has
> written
> >>> on this topic with empirical work in classrooms and makes a case for a
> >>> broad use of the term that converges very closely with. If there is
> >>> interest here, let me know, and i can post one of his papers.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> (the guy who believes that the proper English concept is a zoped)  :-)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 3:56 AM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk<mailto:
> >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk> < robsub@ariadne.org.uk<mailto:
> >>> robsub@ariadne.org.uk>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> I just want to say thank you to Peter for introducing me to
> >>>
> >>>> "Deconflating the ZPD and instructional scaffolding".
> >>>
> >>>> https://www.researchgate.net/p
> >>>
> >>>> ublication/320579162_Deconflating_the_ZPD_and_instructional_
> >>>
> >>>> scaffolding_Retranslating_and_reconceiving_the_zone_of_proxi
> >>>
> >>>> mal_development_as_the_zone_of_next_development
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> I have felt for a long time that there was something not quite right
> >>>
> >>>> about the way people conceive of both the ZPD (or, as I shall now call
> >>>
> >>>> it, the
> >>>
> >>>> ZND) and instructional scaffolding, but lacked the expertise to
> >>>
> >>>> analyse why. Now Peter comes and, with great authority, tells me that
> >>>
> >>>> I was thinking along the right lines. The irony of now being
> >>>
> >>>> officially A Retired Person is that I have the leisure to study these
> >>>
> >>>> things in the detail I needed when I was working and did not have the
> >>> time.....
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> Just a couple of random thoughts around my reading of the article.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> I have always felt that "scaffolding" was a misnomer, a bad choice of
> >>>
> >>>> metaphor by those who originally coined it. The point of scaffolding,
> >>>
> >>>> the stuff you put on buildings, is that it is inflexible. It is
> >>>
> >>>> massive, rigid, and designed never to fall over with a worker on it.
> >>>
> >>>> Although I have never quite been in tune with the idea of
> >>>
> >>>> instructional scaffolding, it has always seemed to me that its point
> >>>
> >>>> must be flexibility - taking bits away from it must be at least as
> >>>
> >>>> important as putting them there in the first place. So, whenever I
> >>>
> >>>> think about instructional scaffolding, I first have to get past the
> >>> jarring metaphor. Perhaps I am too sensitive to words.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> I wonder also if the popularity of the "assisted-learning-today,
> >>>
> >>>> independent-performance-tomorrow" model is not just popularity with
> >>>
> >>>> teachers of teaching. Its short term focus and superficial specificity
> >>>
> >>>> make it appear to be very measurable, which makes it popular with
> >>>
> >>>> policy makers, especially in today's audit culture.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> The introduction of Moll and the idea of context being crucial was
> >>>
> >>>> also very illuminating. Something else for me to examine, dammit. But
> >>>
> >>>> also something that becomes obvious once it is pointed out because
> >>>
> >>>> CHAT and the activity triangle are all about context.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> This quote from p73 gives me pause for thought too. "Assuming that
> >>>
> >>>> instructional scaffolding will work because it is written into a
> >>>
> >>>> lesson plan overlooks the possibility that teacher and learner will
> >>>
> >>>> approach each other in ways that produce conflict over product and
> >>>
> >>>> process, with the student inevitably losing. Scaffolding, then, needs
> >>>
> >>>> to be viewed as an intensely relational process, one requiring mutual
> >>>
> >>>> understanding and negotiation of goals and practices." Teachers know
> >>>
> >>>> that (I would say) but policy makers, at least in this country, don't.
> >>>
> >>>> They love lesson plans and teachers are coerced into achieving the
> >>>
> >>>> aims in the lesson plan regardless of where the lesson is actually
> >>>
> >>>> going. The disjunction between what we know to be good teaching on the
> >>>
> >>>> one hand, and, on the other, the requirements of neoliberal audit
> >>> culture, becomes ever more stark.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>> I hope I am making sense.
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >
> >
>