boun
activities. And that this
process is important in development (there is a really rich
description of how, through their relationships with objects
children embody the actions of others as they are in turn
embodies in the objects of the social cooperative, and the children
use the embodiment of these objects/actions to organize their
own behavior. But childhood reaches this point of crisis
where the child must have an ideal to contrast against the
real. The child must feel that through projective planning he
or she can usurp the real and pursue the ideal. It is this
dynamic interaction that is central to the education process.
And it does not matter so much what the content of the ideal
is, simply that the child is made to recognize that there is an
ideal. This is where the ideas of justaposition and contrasts
of real objects come from, and this is also where we find creativity.
Where does this ideal come from (and remember this is a dynamic,
so it makes no difference whether the ideal exists, simply that
we get the child to contrast the real with the ideal)? That, I
think is probably the most interesting part of this idea. It is
the teacher who must act as a mediating force between the real
world and the ideal world. The teacher then must, in some way,
be representative of this ideal, be able to point towards it,
and say there, that is what you aspire to, now look at the real
world around you and see how you can pursue this (it is interesting
that in popular culture this is so often the description of the
"great" teacher). The ideal is not a thing, or even a cultural
form, but an event in the child's life brought about by the
mediating force of the teacher. If I read El'Konin right he
is saying that the more corrupt and/or cynical our society the
less of a chance for this ideal adulthood. The child remains
in crisis. We can develop all the techniques we want, but if
there is no event representing the ideal for the child, the child
is trapped in this ritual world. There is no reform of education
in a corrupt and/or cynical society. And every time an educator
acceded to a corrupt or cynical demand it is, by association,
another nail in the coffin of education (sorry for the hyperbole).
Michael Glassman
University of Houston