[Xmca-l] Re: English translation of Pedology of the Adolescent

[Huw Lloyd]

Much more than this, David. Consider the number of people that think
Vygotsky is concerned with "mental tools" and that this constitutes
development.

On 2 June 2018 at 00:26, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, someone on this list once remarked that a pencil has in coded form
> the history, the function, and even the structure of writing. So a pencil
> is composed of wood and graphite in one historical period and steel and
> lead in another; a pencil has the function of marking paper without marking
> the fingers, and both functions are realized by the structural relationship
> of the paper-marking element to the covering material.
>
> But I think the key word here is "coded"--the first encoding is only
> accessible to the historian, the second to the engineer, and the third is
> accessible, but ulitmately accidental, in the child's own writing. But
> learning the practice of writing is learning a form of knowing, of knowing
> written speech: it's not a form of decoding the history, structure and
> function of pencils. In East Asia we went from bamboo brushes to cell
> phones with only a generation or two at the pencil stage. In learning how
> literacy is taught, it's probably more useful to listen to what teachers
> say than it is to look at what they give the children; it is here that
> the essential knowledge is laid out in its uncoded form.
>
> My wife's experience of pencils at school was very different from that of
> her brother: he was the eldest son and got new pencils, while the first
> time my wife ever used a pencil longer than a stub of a few centimeters she
> was already in college. Her attitude towards new pencils is still almost
> reverent as a result, but I don't think it has had much effect on the way
> she writes. The post-it notes she has left me on this computer seem quite
> irreverent (particularly with regard to my memory capacity).
>
> dk
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Book with the Seoul Vygotsky Community
>
> Volume 1 of "Pedology of the Adolescent", 분열과 사랑 (in the Korean language)
>
> http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ItemId=148240197
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 5:03 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Item c in David's enumeration makes an appearance in volume 4, p. 60-63.
>> The hankering after "mental tools", in my opinion, is a major
>> misapprehension by students of Vygotsky. It confuses development of the
>> epistemological basis of knowing and activity with the notion of being
>> given a tool! This, in turn, decouples (or ignores) the necessity for
>> practices to embody epistemological forms of knowing from cultural
>> participation. Culture then becomes some arbitrary set of practices that
>> one is indoctrinated into, completely ignoring the necessity for the
>> development in ways of knowing. Maybe the full pedology volume will help to
>> rectify this.
>>
>> Best,
>> Huw
>>
>> On 1 June 2018 at 01:21, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I’m holding my breath...!  :)
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 30, 2018, at 11:04 PM, Larry Smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Message from Francine:
>>>
>>> David thank you for the exposition on how  the *Pedology of the
>>> Adolescent* has come down to us over the years. It should be available
>>> in English for its centennial (2031).
>>>
>>>
>>> ---George Eliot
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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