[Xmca-l] Thanks

[Andy Blunden]

Because I fear that xmca may be done for, I want to put on 
record what xmca has done for me, while I can.

Back in 1999, I was a 54-year-old Technical Manager at the 
University of Melbourne, responsible for maintenance of the 
AV equipment in teaching spaces. I was involved in a project 
of fitting out some rooms for collaborative learning and 
collaborating with some academic staff, and from them I 
learnt about Vygotsky. I had heard about him, but never read 
him. His books were not available in Australia. I had never 
attended a lecture in Psychology or anything, but I wanted 
to learn more about Vygotsky. One of the academics suggested 
I join xmca. I had never seen a listserv before but I gave 
it a go.

I made lot of gaffs in those first days, including letting 
it be known that I thought Mike Cole was some kind of bot, 
because he always answered my questions so promptly, I 
didn't think it could be a real person. And I also told 
someone that their paper was "very poor" which I thought was 
a normal thing to do. Of course, you don't say such things 
on a listserv.

Any way, I have since published books on CHAT and so forth, 
and rightly or wrongly I have a reputation. Everything I 
learnt has from directly or indirectly from xmca. Without it 
I would be nothing. If xmca folds I will understand, but I 
will be very sad.

I understand what Zaza so insightfully called the "risk" of 
posting to xmca. It never affected me because I never had 
any fear of academics. My interactions with them (before 
xmca) had been either as their union rep. or helping them 
when they were having trouble with their equipment. I never 
depended on one of them for my career, and it never really 
mattered if I said something wrong. But I get it that it is 
not like that for everyone. I don't see anything that could 
be done about that riskiness. What attracted me to xmca was 
that you could ask a question and the person who wrote the 
book might answer you. It was amazing! It's not a friendship 
group. It's very diversity has been its importance for me. 
Otherwise I would never know people like  Mike, or Martin or 
David K(x2) or Beth or Anthony or Carol, ..... all of whom I 
now count as friends.

But what can you do? Let's see what the morrow brings.

Thank you xmca.

Andy

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*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements 
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