[Xmca-l] Re: "Which one question . . .?"

[Anthony Barra]

Thanks Henry et al, including Andy Blunden who recently weighed in to this
thread as well: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8gZGW9PQfs__;!!Mih3wA!XO9Wd_hEp6bgWxqIGjtb-R2EEvT8OCqnCfvrBYU4qdlZusH_7PXRQHRDeRYNCzlk4SJkLA$ 

Anthony

On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 6:02 PM HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> I would add something to the discussion of the question is that much of
> the work done in determining the functions of the brain are based on
> studies of people with insults to the brain. This raises exactly the
> problem Vygotsky talks about in studying the development of the child
> whereby the child is seen as an imperfect adult. It’s not a stretch to see
> the obsession with standardized testing to determine learning as the same
> deficit approach. Or a checklist of features to characterize a category.
> Life is messy. Most of us won’t admit we’re lucky to be better off than
> someone else. Instead we defend our privilege with claptrap about free
> will. :)
> Henry
>
>
> On Jan 22, 2021, at 1:38 PM, Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Helpful responses, thank you.
>
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 8:50 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Recently I was asked: "In a room of experts, which question would you
>> most like to hear a range of responses to?"
>>
>> On the spot, I had no answer, but I do have one now:
>>
>> *This question: "What do you think all this means? *(excerpted from
>> Collected Works, Vol 4)
>>
>>    - ". . . the problem that confronts psychology is to detect the true
>>    uniqueness of child behavior in all the fullness and richness of its actual
>>    expression and to present a positive picture of the child personality. But
>>    a positive picture is possible only if we radically change our
>>    representation of child development and take into account that it is *a
>>    complex dialectical process that is characterized by a complex periodicity,
>>    disproportion in the development of separate functions, metamorphoses or
>>    qualitative transformation of certain forms into others, a complex merging
>>    of the processes of evolution and involution, a complex crossing of
>>    external and internal factors, a complex process of overcoming difficulties
>>    and adapting*" (Vygotsky 1997, Vol 4. pp. 98–99)
>>
>> It seems the question can only be answered in less than 2 minutes or more
>> than 45 minutes. Is a middle range even possible?
>>
>> If you have any thoughts, please share.
>>
>> Thanks, and happy new year ~
>>
>> Anthony Barra
>>
>>
>> P.S. For context, here are two preceding paragraphs to the excerpt above:
>>
>>    - "Should we want to characterize in a single general statement the
>>    basic requisite that the problem of development raises for contemporary
>>    research, we could say that this requisite consists in studying the
>>    positive uniqueness of child behavior. This requires some explanation.
>>    - All psychological methods used thus far for studying the behavior
>>    of the normal and the abnormal child, regardless of the great variety and
>>    differences that exist between them, have one common characteristic that
>>    links them in a certain respect. This characteristic is the negative
>>    description of the child that results from existing methods. All the
>>    methods speak of what the child does not have, what the child lacks in
>>    comparison with the adult, and what the abnormal child lacks as compared to
>>    the normal child. We have before us always a negative picture of the child
>>    personality. Such a picture tells us nothing about the positive uniqueness
>>    that distinguishes the child from the adult and the abnormal child from the
>>    normal child." (p. 98)
>>
>>
>
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