[Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

Wed Mar 14 17:03:09 PDT 2018

I was ten years old on 15 October 1969, during the first national
moratorium to end the Vietnam War, and I was a leader of the school patrol
at my elementary school. Our job was standing at intersections with red
plastic flags to stop the cars so that the younger grades could cross
safely. The day before the Moratorium, we marched up a nearby hill instead
of going to our first class so we could hold a discussion over whether it
was right to strike on the Moratorium Day, and thus endanger the lives of
the littler children. We decided to go ahead with a strike and close down
the school the next day; I remember leading a march (our plastic red flags
flying!) which included some little 'uns (second and third graders) to
Coffmann Union on the nearby University of Minnesota campus where there
were tens of thousands of  protesting students. They greeted us with a roar
I never forgot.

My wife, curiously, had a similar experience: she was an elementary school
leader of the movement to criticize Lin Biao and Confucius in China and
made speeches at mass meetings all over her hometown of Xi'an when she was
about seven years old. Yes, the speeches were usually ones she copied from
People's Daily, with the help of a friend of her mother's. But she was the
only one in her elementary school who could read the speeches with an
intonation that suggested understanding and did not have stage fright in
front of tens of thousands of adults. As she says today, the newborn calf
does not fear a full grown tiger.

When we talk about our childhood experiences of mass movements, what
strikes me is how utterly pre-conceptal, complexive, and even syncretic we
both were: I imagined that the bombing of elementary schools in Vietnam was
done to kill second and third graders; my wife thought that Confucius was
still alive, and that's why we need to criticize him (in fact, even Lin
Biao was already dead by then).  Similarly, it seems to me that a lot of
the thinking around guns in the USA--and not just by kids--is
pre-conceptual. The latest shooting was political--it was carried out by a
white nationalist who had trained in the use of weapons with other white
nationalists. This isn't much discussed.

It seems to me that the suggestion to arm teachers (which is already being
done in many areas, but in a way that only endangers teacher lives) offers
an affordance for a more sophisticated and also more programmatic approach
than simply trying to turn Trump's offhand comments into legislation. If
the teachers union had specially trained armed defense guards, for example,
they could not only stop school shooters, they might provide some limited
protection to black students in South Chicago who are murdered by the
police on their way to and from school. And of course armed union defense
guards would be absolutely consistent with the "well regulated militia"
provision of the Second Amendment, and with practices in countries like
Switzerland.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

Recent Article in *Early Years*

The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises, and the
child’s first interrogatives
<https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>

Free e-print available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 8:59 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> During the anti-Vietnam War movement there were certainly
> actions by school children. In Australia, so I'm sure it
> would have happened in the US. But in that case the
> schoolkids were joining what was already a mass movement.
> The anti-gun movement obviously exists in the US, among
> adults, but I get the impression that in both the USD &
> Brazil, it is schoolkid initiated. Obviously very many of
> the kids have the moral support and encouragement of their
> own parents and many teachers and principals. But that is
> not the same as actually setting dates and places, informing
> relevant people, drafts up letters and statements, etc., etc.
>
> Every protest in modern times (20th century) happens thanks
> to the tireless work of a certain social type called the
> Organiser. The Organiser maintains a two-inch think address
> book, kept up to date by regular calls relevant to a variety
> of campaigns and utilised in the latest protest. The
> Organiser hardly ever sleeps, they really *work* at it, and
> you receive multiple phone calls reminding you when to be
> where and to bring this or that or your friend along too.
> They also know their subject and have mastered all the facts
> and rhetoric and pester all the media.
>
> Whatever else it is, FaceBook enables everyone to be an
> Organiser. The downside is that it has made people lazy;
> poster runs, where a group of activists run around the
> business areas at night sticking up posters, have almost
> disappeared, as have the phone trees which organised the
> Peace Movement. But we all know the story of redundant skills
>
> Although I always resist simplistic maxims like "the
> transformation of quantity into quality" it really seems
> reasonable to me that social media plus Trump plus yet
> another mass murder cheered on by the NRA and their
> political representatives can, at a certain point, exceed
> boiling point.
>
> I look forward with interest to how it goes tomorrow. And
> how a new generation handles themselves when they go out to
> work and vote.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 14/03/2018 10:25 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> > Hello Fernando,
> >
> > What I find really interesting is this phrase,
> >
> > "it was the first time in Brazilian history that students (who were not
> supposed to interfere) interfered in a political decision."
> >
> > Mike alluded to this in his message as well about Parkland.  I find it
> fascinating that the same type of movement among the same age group is
> occurring simultaneously in the U.S. and in Brazil. Yet I believe these
> students have no contact with each other. And there is nobody teaching
> them. There are no experts.  They are learning in a way that challenges
> many of our belief systems about learning (unless they are machines).
> >
> > Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day in the U.S.  As part of
> the anti-gun movement students all over the country are going to be walking
> out of school and staying out for seventeen minutes.  In some places
> schools will support this. In some places it just won't happen.  But I am
> growing more fearful of what happens if there is a flashpoint between the
> schools and the students.  I wonder if some schools will try and chain the
> doors.  I wonder if some schools will lock the students out (this already
> happened at one school putting students in danger).  I wonder if police
> will decide to have a presence.  This will be the first time students (at
> least high schoolers) en masse decided to challenge the authority of the
> state.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Fernando Cunha
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 3:03 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>; mike
> cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> > Cc: Lemos, Monica <monica.lemos@helsinki.fi>
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
> schools
> >
> > Dear all,
> > I really appreciate the discussion so far, and I liked the way some of
> you used some metaphors. It was far from our intention to reinvent the
> wheel or to use flint stones to light fire. What I think it is important is
> that there is no "if" in human history, and we are where we are because we
> transform the places we live, as well as the tools we use. We can for sure
> ride horses in the cities, but the horses would sweat so much (considering
> the asphalt roads), that in a matter of hours they would die.
> >
> > Since life is forward, we tried to show in our article a small part of
> what the movements organized by the students were.It is important to
> highlight, that despite people that were not in favor of protests
> (including some students!), it was the first time in Brazilian history that
> students (who were not supposed to interfere) interfered in a political
> decision. And they did so not only by using Facebook. As we mention in our
> paper, Facebook is one aspect of the protests, and we considered it as a
> mediational communicative tool. As I mentioned before in this answer, we as
> human beings use tools that are available, reshape them, and sometimes use
> them for a purpose that is completely different from the original idea.
> > I myself am a secondary education teacher, and I am also a researcher
> because I am a secondary education teacher. We may have different points of
> view when you research something as an outsider, and when you participate
> (not as an ethnographer), but as a subject of the group. In my humble
> opinion, we are still trying to conceptualize (and stabilize) things that
> move faster than we can handle as scientists, or to compare contexts that
> cannot be compared.
> >
> > I am looking forward to your reactions.
> > Best regards,
> >
> >
> > __________________________Fernando R. Cunha Júnior, PhD.
> >
> > http://fernandorcjr.wordpress.com
> >
> >
> >     Em segunda-feira, 12 de março de 2018 21:05:34 BRT, mike cole <
> mcole@ucsd.edu> escreveu:
> >
> >  Alfredo et al
> >
> > I read this message before reading the prior one. You are making the
> point I was trying to make regarding discussion of the paper.
> > In our everyday lives we are experiencing a change in the wind (to use a
> metaphor that Dylan made famous at another such time).
> > HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE DISRUPTING THINGS AS USUAL for the first time
> in my life. Call it 65 years.
> >
> > And we are academics and some of us are are paid to theorize such
> matters.
> > To theorize the social organization of society was Hugh's description of
> the social sciences. In most American Universities, Psychology (cap P) is
> located in the social sciences.
> > Do we approach the problem from "below" as psychologists? Do we approach
> it from "above" as sociologists and political scientists?
> > Can you link the Leontiev who writes about the nature of human
> consciousness, psychologically speaking and conducts experiments in the
> laboratory that look for all the world like what goes on in my psychology
> department, AND as someone who can help understand the growth of social
> movements? This may also be a way to address and understanding of the
> overlap and variability in the ideas of Vygotsky and Friere.
> >
> > Monica and Fernando must be reeling from all the complicated English we
> are spewing. I look forward to the discussion.
> >
> > Still worrying about Figure 3! I know I need to be able to interpret it
> but I am doing a lousy job.
> >
> > mike
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 5:34 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Thanks for finding and sharing the link, Andy, and thanks Michael and
> >> Mike for bringing the absolutely relevant connection to Parklands.
> >>
> >> There was not so long ago a discussion here as well as in a couple of
> >> articles in MCA about how crises leading to development most often
> >> result from quantitative increments that lead to qualitative leaps
> >> such that new forms of organization emerge from previous ones. So,
> >> David, I don't see why increments in the pace of circulation (e.g., of
> >> information) would not be expected to bring with them changes in the
> >> organisation of the whole economy system. I would not say that social
> >> media is just bringing a lot more of the same, just as I would not a
> >> priori reject the possibility that bringing a lot more of the same
> >> might not end up bringing new qualitative forms of communicating. The
> >> observation that "like" is intransitive in Facebook is interesting;
> >> but to me it needs to be put in its larger context of use. And so, are
> >> we analysing Facebook as a grammar closed up in itself, or as one more
> chain in a larger grammar of possible cooperation?
> >>
> >> I am myself concerned that Social Media like Facebook may be
> >> amplifying dichotomical thinking beyond the innocuous and often
> >> way-to-verbose essays we academics enjoy entertaining with much more
> >> complex verbal forms than Facebook's intransitive "likes", only that
> >> the confrontations now seem to be moving to family's dinner tables,
> >> quarrels among protesters in public squares, or previously unheard of
> >> incarcerations for publishing tweets and rap songs that critique the
> >> crown in a supposedly modern democracy like Spain (e.g.:
> >> http://cadenaser.com/ser/2018/02/20/tribunales/1519135083_
> >> 106543.html). But the article here discussed also shows that there are
> >> forms of organization that these technologies are affording that may
> >> bring more positive changes, like the case again in Spain of March 8th
> >> women's strike, the extent of which no politician or journalist had
> >> anticipated and which led the government to quickly adopt a much more
> >> equity-friendly discourse than even the evening before
> >> (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4_11iIELdfc). So, no, probably that
> >> one strike, or that one social media that may have made it possible,
> >> won't change the system. But they seem to incrementally add to
> something, don't they?
> >>
> >> Alfredo Jornet
> >> ________________________________
> >> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagining Design: Transitive and
> >> intransitive dimensions"
> >> Free print available: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
> >>
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden
> >> <andyb@marxists.org>
> >> Sent: 12 March 2018 06:39
> >> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
> >> schools
> >>
> >> That headline does not exist, but is it this:
> >>
> >> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/us/parkland-students-social-media.h
> >> tml
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Andy Blunden
> >> ttp://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> >> On 12/03/2018 4:02 PM, mike cole wrote:
> >>> Michael - I have been trying to find a digital copy of a story in
> >>> today's NY Times titled "the social media warriors of parkland." For
> >>> some reason
> >> it
> >>> is not visible on the digital version.... yet. Maybe someone out
> >>> there in  xmca-land can find it for us? I will check again  in the
> >>> morning to see if it appears.
> >>>       It seems especially relevant to Monica and Fernando's article,
> >>> and
> >> to
> >>> David's comment that "  it is very hard for me to pinpoint any
> >>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
> >> possible by
> >>> Facebook."  The voices and forms of speaking used by the students
> >>> was
> >> not,
> >>> so far as I could tell, the source of data. There are no quotations
> >>> of
> >> any
> >>> students speaking differently. I assumed that this article was about
> >>> collective action.
> >>> Monica and Fernando - I confess I had difficulty following parts of
> >>> the article, perhaps because I am a very seldom user of Facebook. In
> >>> particular, I had difficulty understanding Figure 3.  Were the
> >>> people who started M1 also those who started M2-M3? ( " Once
> >>> students achieved the object of the activity—in the first case, to
> >>> avoid the closure of the schools—they focused the protests on another
> object").
> >>>
> >>> Did the M4 people get the idea from M1 through a FB connection form M1?
> >> Did
> >>> you get any sense of what distinguished pages that got a few hundred
> >> versus
> >>> 10,000 reactions?
> >>>
> >>> Harshad - Did you think the article failed to consider social issues?
> >> There
> >>> is no information about you on the xmca membership page, so it is
> >>> difficult to know from what part of the world you are writing.
> >>> Unless I miss my guess, some people will wonder at your use of the
> >>> word "man" where the local practice might put "humankind" or some
> >>> other gender inclusive term.
> >>>
> >>> David - Daylight saving time tonight so I find myself "working
> >>> late."  It got me to wondering how many people live in Seoul. A lot,
> it turns out.
> >>> About 9-10 million. That got me to wondering about how much faster
> >>> all those people would be getting around on horses with all the
> >>> horse plops
> >> to
> >>> clamber over. And all that hay to haul into town for the morning
> >>> rush hour.  :-)
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 8:25 PM, Glassman, Michael
> >>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi David,
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm sure those meddling kids won't come back on your lawn any time
> soon.
> >>>>
> >>>> But really, the article did not say Facebook is a new type of
> >> technology.
> >>>> I believe they said that it's a form of human-technology
> >>>> interaction and suggested perhaps social media was a new type of
> >>>> human-technology interaction.  I don't agree with this phrasing. I
> >>>> tend to think of
> >> Facebook
> >>>> more as an application of Internet technology - but either way
> >>>> Facebook
> >> is
> >>>> just a form or an application. Is the internetworking of computer,
> >>>> radio and satellite communication an enormous step forward in how
> >>>> humans communicate.  I think so - it's really extraordinary on a
> >>>> number of
> >> levels
> >>>> but that's really not the conversation for this article.
> >>>>
> >>>> I do think the authors have done an analysis that is interesting
> >>>> and possibly important, especially when one considers what is
> >>>> currently
> >> going
> >>>> on down in Parkland (some might be happy to know that, at least
> >>>> from
> >> what I
> >>>> have read, Facebook isn't dominant or even that important for these
> >>>> students. Adults have been using it more for larger organizational
> >> events
> >>>> like the March 14 walkout and the March 24 march).  I have read
> >>>> some articles on organizing on online forums (and actually wrote a
> >>>> not very
> >> good
> >>>> one a few years back). Most of them are communications based an
> >>>> don't
> >> have
> >>>> strong theoretical underpinning which is why I think this article
> >>>> might
> >> be
> >>>> an important step forward.
> >>>>
> >>>> I think the idea of using third generation activity theory might be
> >>>> a
> >> good
> >>>> idea for this type of analysis. I myself have seen ties between the
> >>>> trialogical approach being developed by Hakkareinan and Paavola and
> >> what is
> >>>> going on down in Parkland. The students are creating their own
> >>>> projects
> >> and
> >>>> then getting the larger community to buy in to and support what
> >>>> they are doing which is in turn changing the quality of their
> >>>> activities. I have
> >> my
> >>>> own ideas on why this is suddenly happening and direct
> >>>> communication technologies like Twitter and texting (which seem
> >>>> primary vehicles) are only part of it.
> >>>>
> >>>> Anyway, this particular article I think is really timely and should
> >>>> give us a lot to think about.
> >>>>
> >>>> Michael
> >>>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> >>>> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> >>>> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:03 PM
> >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian
> >> schools
> >>>> So in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg exapted extant technology
> >>>> already widely available in China and published a single text using
> >>>> moveable
> >> type
> >>>> which started a profound intellectual, cultural, and social
> >>>> revolution whose effects we still feel today: the rise of
> >>>> Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation in, among other places,
> >>>> Brazil, the Wars of
> >> Religion in
> >>>> France, the vicissitudes of a multii-confessional (political) State
> >>>> and ultimately those of a multi-confessional (psychological) state,
> >>>> In the twentieth century, Ford similarly exapted extant technology,
> >>>> this time nearly two millenia later than China, and mass-produced
> >>>> automobiles
> >> using
> >>>> Taylorism, forcing everybody to buy an identical product with
> >>>> interchangeable parts made by factories with interchangeable workers.
> >>>> The automobile "revolution" did not even give us new roads, and in
> >>>> Seoul today traffic moves notably slower than it would on
> >>>> horseback. Clearly, there are some forms of technology that are
> >>>> actually semiogenic--and
> >> others
> >>>> which merely circulate capital at a faster rate and actually slow
> >>>> the movement of people and new ideas.
> >>>>
> >>>> So my question is very simple. How do we know that "Facebook"
> >>>> (which as the name implies was originally designed to help Harvard
> >>>> freshmen decide which classmates were sufficiently hot to "like")
> >>>> is really one of the former technologies?.There are very clear
> >>>> signs , beyond the obvious
> >> ones
> >>>> surrounding the American origins, that it belongs to the latter
> >> category,
> >>>> and not a few of them appear in this very article. First of all,
> >>>> the authors are honest enough to associate Facebook with
> >>>> reactionary, xenophobic, populist movements like the clowns who run
> the "Five Stars"
> >>>> movement in Italy. Second, on the very first page, the authors try
> >>>> but
> >> do
> >>>> not really seem to be able to distinguish between the "post first
> >>>> and organize later" technologies of Occupy Wall Street and the use
> >>>> of social media by the four movements in the article (including one
> >>>> actually
> >> called
> >>>> "Occupy Everything"). And thirdly, it is very hard for me to
> >>>> pinpoint
> >> any
> >>>> actual new form of thinking or new form of speaking which was made
> >> possible
> >>>> by Facebook. If anything, Facebook seems to narrow semiogenic power
> >>>> to a single consumer/computer menu. Ford said, you can get a Model
> >>>> A in any color you like so long as it's black. Facebook tells us
> >>>> the same thing,
> >> but
> >>>> makes the verb "like" intransitive.
> >>>>
> >>>> David Kellogg
> >>>> Sangmyung University
> >>>>
> >>>> Recent Article in *Early Years*
> >>>>
> >>>> The question of questions: Hasan’s critiques, Vygotsky’s crises,
> >>>> and the child’s first interrogatives <https://www.tandfonline.com/
> >>>> doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2018.1431874>
> >>>>
> >>>> Free e-print available at:
> >>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6EeWMigjFARavQjDJjcW/full
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Sun, Mar 11, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <
> >> a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Dear xmca'ers,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> it is (bit over) due time for introducing the article for
> >>>>> discussion from MCA's 2018 Issue 1, before Issue 2 comes upon us
> soon.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The selected article, by Monica Ferreira Lemos and Fernando
> >>>>> Rezende da Cunha Júnior, is about two topics that were thematised
> >>>>> in the last ISCAR congress and that ought to be of much relevance
> >>>>> to current and future CHAT-related research: Social media and
> >>>>> social movements. In particular, the article examines how students
> >>>>> use social media for the organization and development of 4 social
> movements in Brazil.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The article is attached and is Free access during the discussion
> >> period.
> >>>>> It can be accessed free in the following link:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2017.1379823
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The authors have kindly agreed to participate in the discussion
> >>>>> and they will be introducing themselves soon. I hope you  will
> >>>>> find the article interesting and please don't be shy to share
> >>>>> anything you might have learned reading it, anything you might
> >>>>> wonder about it or that you would like see discussed. Having
> >>>>> authors engage in dialogue is a great opportunity that this
> >>>>> community offers and that makes sense the most when many of you
> participate. Good reading!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Alfredo Jornet
> >>>>>
> >>>>> New article in *Design Studies* "Imagning Design: Transitive and
> >>>>> intransitive dimensions"
> >>>>> Free print available:
> >>>>> https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1WhHg_,KmyN6Dr
> >>>>>
> >>
> >
>
>