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

Thu Mar 15 16:35:05 PDT 2018

Just as a note to Harshad's and Michael's comments, and with the hope to, although through a little detour, somehow re-connect with the article (at least with the topic of social media, youth, and social mobilisation): 

Today, in Reykjavik, we were in a meeting discussing opportunities and challenges that emerge when educators try to implement makerspaces activities with young children (5-6 years old), now that those have become fashionable and educators are trying to see what's good in there. In the meeting, there were experienced kindergarten teachers, science center organisers, artist researchers, "just plain postdocs" and the likes, all of whom have experience and passion about children and learning. We all agreed that most of the problems in attempting to implement makerspaces-like activities with younger children had to do with the failure of the adults to appreciate and let the children own and make the space theirs, which we find is the whole point of a maker space. We pointed out our failure to see and listen how the kids see and listen, so as to help them make. While many of us, adults, in those situations tend to attend to the verb "to make" in the transitive, as in "she makes some*thing*", thereby focusing on some end in mind that provides with a model against which to exert correction, we forget that, in most cases, the kids are in fact *making* (in the intransitive, without object), and that it is in the making that the possibility of the end object emerges. Instead of supporting them, appreciating the heart of what making means—in praxis—we tend to suffocate them, narrowing the space so that it no longer is a makerspace, or at least not one even close to their regular kindergarten spaces. 

Similarly, I am reluctant here to follow the lead that "mass youth is mislead," at least not before I try to carefully and respectfully attend to where they are at, what *their* world and space is, and what they say. For yes, the words "safety" or "Girls clothing in school is more regulated than GUNS in America" may not sound as erudite and profound as more complex statements about the relations between Philosophy, Science, Ethics, and Economy (all with capital letter). But the fact is that the magic, the future, humanity in fact, is in their saying. So I would listen, but not with the narrow backward view of us adults who already know, but from the prospective forward view of those who grow. And this is not to say that they are right or that they are wrong; that would be, I think, missing the point. Even though, I must say, the messages too, like "your prayers do nothing," are quite convincing to me. 

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 Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
Sent: 15 March 2018 15:36
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

Hi Harshad,

Sometimes it is the obvious not the obscure.  If you want a hungry person to not be hungry anymore you give them food.  A student of mind did a great study on homelessness.  Basically the best thing you can do to avoid homelessness is you give people homes.  And if you want people to stop shooting each other with guns you take away their guns.

Don't forget also that the nuclear family is something we pretty much made up over the last few centuries.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Harshad Dave
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2018 8:54 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Article for discussion: Facebook in Brazilian schools

15 March 2018.

Dear friends,

I write here with reference to email message from Michael (Wed, Mar 14,
2018 at 9:25 PM). As far as protest for gun control and debate on it is concerned, I put some views here.

We all are aware that this is not the first event of open fire on school students as well as mass killing with gun fire on public place (recall Las Vegas shooting and other). Right from beginning, when Columbus discovered the New World, the road of establishing civilized society on continent America was not a comfortable one. The people passed through challenges, hardship and peril in day to day life during the travel on the road. This journey moulded a responsible and wisdom full culture in the blood of people living there. They fought for independence and emerged with a unity named USA, they sustained with and sacrificed in civil war, they passed through the severe recession of 1930 after World War I, and they fought thousands of kilometres away from native place along with allied nations in World War II. These all are the untold, unwritten qualification of the people of the time that decorated with a right of freedom to keep weapons with them. We never heard of such insane events of mass killing in this society in the history of this people though freedom to keep gun/weapon was and has been a right.

[NB: Please note, I am neither in favour nor in opposition to the protest.
I try to just bring one point of consideration to the reader.]

After August 1945, USA emerged with some exceptional lead over other nations of the world. If we consider a period of 25 years as generation change, the third and fourth generation constitutes present youth. Those who were born in and after August 1945 could study the history of the above path that was traveled by their ancestors. There is much difference between reading a history and making living in the same history.

Moreover, I recall the words of President Roosevelt, “*The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.*” It brought a new style and different culture with comfortable life and inexperienced thinking and thoughts in new generations. The emerging social constitution of society in USA and its systems as well as institutions grew with a rapid progress and incessant changes. Majority people believe that “*dollars”* is the ultimate key towards happiness and peace. Institutions and system of society worked as if “*science and technology”* has the entire competency to settle any social problem.

Wise people.... perhaps... failed to understand that our society is stable and balance on four pillars.... they (pillars) are Philosophy, Ethics and Religion, Science and Technology and Economics. Uneven growth in one or more pillars will destabilize the society. Now a day, we are searching all the answers of social issues from *science and technology*. We try to sort out every problem through *dollars* only, and we do not know if it is sorted out or postponed. Neither we honestly give adequate stress on ethical value nor do we have uniform philosophy on which our society might rest. Family system is all most paralyzed. Youth are encouraged or instigated to be independent and self sufficient as soon as they reach at a prescribed age. We treat them as freedom to youth. Our youth mass is not aware of all this fact and every street and corners are equipped with a net-work to misleading the youth.

Now, this mass of the youth protests with an esteemed trust that the subject gun law will bring a safety. They never know, “*Safety never come from the enacted laws, it does come from the healthy and balanced social system.*” Presently, it seems to me that protesters are with a trust to bring safety by introducing the subject gun law, but the events of shootings shout for the grass root changes in social system with balance uniform growth in the above said four pillars. It demands for reintroducing an affectionate family system again and fundamental education that dollars cannot always bring happiness and peace but where the real happiness and peace lie.

Harshad Dave

Email: hhdave15@gmail.com
On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Fernando and Monica,
>
> This is what is happening is the United States today,
>
> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/students-
> from-thousands-of-schools-stage-a-walkout-to-protest-
> gun-violence-and-honor-parkland-victims.html
>
> It is nothing less than extraordinary. Many are trying to limit this
> to gun violence but I wonder, based on your article, if it will soon
> transform into another movement. But I think it goes to show how the
> work you have done, if only a beginning, is really important. I feel
> like we have missed this in U.S. academic circles.  There is what is
> basically an idiotic article on fake news in the most recent Science,
> supposed to be our flagship.
>
> I feel like we have to hit the re-set button on understanding what is
> going on and the role that what you call human-technology interaction
> is playing.
>
> I have a question for some activity theorists if they are interested
> in responding. In some ways what is going on does mirror an activity
> model, the multi-level reciprocal transformation (unless I am
> misunderstanding something). But as I said in an earlier message there
> is nobody coming in doing an intervention, the transformation itself
> is organic, more Dewey oriented I would say (I think maybe Friere
> also).  Is there room for this in activity theory?
>
> 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/10.1080/10749039.2017.13798
> > >>> 23
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> 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
> > >>>
> > >>
> >
> >
>
>