[Xmca-l] Re: Teacher Distancing and "Social Distancing"

[robsub@ariadne.org.uk]

Just a couple of very quick observations. (I find regularly that by the 
time I have formulated my response to something, the conversation has 
moved on by several degrees, so I'm getting in quickly.)

Firstly the link to your article on Ruqaiya didn't resolve, David. But I 
found it here: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d7Wrm3_kaKqODPVr-UtouXiIa-kw$ . Thank 
you for that, though - looks well worth reading.

Secondly, I always had the impression that Bernstein was resisted not 
because of his work on codes specifically, but because he was too prone 
to allowing his work to be used to justify class differentials, almost 
to the level of the poor keep themselves poor by deliberately 
restricting the language their children learn.

Thirdly, meatspace. Hmmm. I'm toying with the idea of pinkspace. Less 
physically vulgar than meatspace and reflects the reality that the 
physical world, just like the online world, is dominated by those of us 
who are pink. Just a thought. Needs developing though.

Rob


On 2020-05-26 03:08, David Kellogg wrote:
> Michael, Anthony, Elizabeth--and (of course) Annalisa:
> 
> I apologize for changing the threadline title AGAIN. I feel like the
> five-year-old who is always unscrewing the back of the TV set to see
> the little people inside; I was very dissatisfied withe the abstract
> theory on the other line, according to which everything is everything
> and mediation and unmediation are equally both and I wanted a way of
> finding the people inside it. I thought the term "meatspace", which
> Annalisa has heard before, captured that feeling pretty well (and
> there are also some echoes of a corruscating book review I once read
> in MCA titled something like "Yer askin' me to believe in sentient
> MEAT????")
> 
> Let's use Michael's categories of "teacher presence" and "social
> presence" instead, so long as we keep in mind the point that Michael
> made at the end, that is, the teacher is always present even when the
> teacher is not present (as when the child is doing homework alone) and
> the additional point that teacher presence is one kind of social
> presence. But because presence and absence are (like mediated and
> unmediated) equally both ungradeable categories, I would prefer to
> talk about teacher distancing and social distancing. Michael Osterholm
> has objected to the term social distancing for the same reasons I
> raised earlier--it's a physical, mechanical distancing that actually
> creates a higher form of solidarity (and that is why the elements of
> society which oppose higher forms of solidarity oppose it). So I put
> "social distancing" in scare quotes. But the teacher distancing is
> real enough.
> 
> Real but not by itself of developmental significance. What worries me
> is the possibility that we are adding to the kinds of inequalitiees
> that Annalisa, Henry and Tom are talking about on the other thread. It
> seems to me that teacher distancing differentially hurts some
> populations. I disagree that Koreans are more homogeneous than other
> cultures (in class terms significantly  less so) and I also think that
> if you were to sit through a lecture in the Korean language without
> understanding Korean you would not agree that language is the least
> important aspect of teacher presence. But (to bring these two
> together) I think that students who are able to focus on language, and
> on particular kinds of language, are disproportionately enabled in
> conditions of teacher distancing. This is the issue that dare not
> speak its name, for when Bernstein tried to raise it he was, as
> Halliday noted, "driven out of the field".  One of the reasons I wrote
> the article linked below is that Ruqaiya Hasan was not.
> 
> David Kellogg
> 
> Sangmyung University
> 
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d7Wrm3_kaKqODPVr-Utot_Yz0eEQ$  [1]
> 
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: _L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological
> Works_ _Volume One: Foundations of Pedology_"
> 
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!XdBjusDTRI2ze6diFPoONbkpS5qFdLZworNTRS5-z-d7Wrm3_kaKqODPVr-UtotPljj6rQ$  [2]
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1]
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zce9P2I5M_FZBJKElhGyP20UejX0w$
> [2]
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!VO48fELJW7sniTLYfb-jdmrQdoIXI216JGBeW6N8-Zce9P2I5M_FZBJKElhGyP026P9-1A$